On the distribution of $\alpha p$ modulo one in imaginary quadratic number fields with class number one

Abstract

We investigate the distribution of $\alpha p$ modulo one in imaginary quadratic number fields $\mathbb{K}\subset\mathbb{C}$ with class number one, where $p$ is restricted to prime elements in the ring of integers $\mathcal{O} = \mathbb{Z}[\omega]$ of $\mathbb{K}$. In analogy to classical work due to R. C. Vaughan, we obtain that the inequality $\lVert\alpha p\rVert_\omega < \mathrm{N}(p)^{-1/8+\epsilon}$ is satisfied for infinitely many $p$, where $\lVert\varrho\rVert_\omega$ measures the distance of $\varrho\in\mathbb{C}$ to $\mathscr{O}$ and $\mathrm{N}(p)$ denotes the norm of $p$. The proof is based on Harman's sieve method and employs number field analogues of classical ideas due to Vinogradov. Moreover, we introduce a smoothing which allows us to make conveniently use of the Poisson summation formula.