Nine-distance theorem and growth of best-approximation denominators

Abstract

We prove a nine-distance theorem for Kronecker sequences on flat three-tori. That is, we show that among the first $N$ orbit points, at most nine distinct positive nearest-neighbour distances occur. This proves the conjecture of Haynes and Marklof. An example of Dettmann shows that nine is optimal. More generally, we prove that on a flat $d$-dimensional torus the number of such distances is at most $2^d+1$. The main tool is a new growth theorem for the denominators $q_1<q_2<\cdots$ of best simultaneous approximations in a $d$-dimensional inner-product space, which is of independent interest. We prove that, whenever $q_{n+2^d}$ is defined, either $q_{n+2^d}\ge 2q_{n+1}$, or the indices $1,\dots ,2^d$ can be partitioned into disjoint pairs $\{j,k\}$, $j<k$, such that $q_{n+k}=q_n+q_{n+j}$. In particular, $$q_{n+2^d}\ge \min \{2q_{n+1},q_n+q_{n+2^{d-1}}\}\ge q_n+q_{n+1}.$$

15 pages