arXiv · 2607.04421
Sharpening Borel's result in Diophantine approximation
Abstract
In this paper, we refine Borel's 1903 result in Diophantine approximation by providing sharper bounds for the minimum of three consecutive approximation coefficients $\Theta_n(x)$, defined for any real number $x$ with regular continued fraction (RCF) expansion $x=[0;a_1,a_2,\dots]$ as $\Theta_n = q_n^2\left| x-\frac{p_n}{q_n}\right|$. Here $\frac{p_n}{q_n}$ is the $n$th RCF convergent of $x$. Borel's result states that for all (irrational) $x$ and all $n\in\mathbb{N}$, $$ \min \left\{ \Theta_{n-1}(x),\Theta_n(x),\Theta_{n+1}(x)\right\} \leq \frac{1}{\sqrt{5}}. $$ We focus on the situation where $a_{n+1}=1$, since otherwise a result by F.~Bagemihl and J.R.~McLaughlin from 1966 implies that the Borel-bound $1/\sqrt{5}$ can already be improver to $1/\sqrt{8}$.
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Savita S. Adhin, Ayreena Bakhtawar, Cor Kraaikamp. 2026-07-05. Sharpening Borel's result in Diophantine approximation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.04421
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