$M\backslash L$ is not closed

Abstract

We show that $1+3/\sqrt{2}$ is a point of the Lagrange spectrum $L$ which is accumulated by a sequence of elements of the complement $M\setminus L$ of the Lagrange spectrum in the Markov spectrum $M$. In particular, $M\setminus L$ is not a closed subset of $\mathbb{R}$, so that a question by T. Bousch has a negative answer.

33 pages, to appear in Int. Math. Res. Notices