Geometric Number Theory Lenny Fukshansky
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Geometric Number Theory Lenny Fukshansky Minkowki's creation of the geometry of numbers was likened to the story of Saul, who set out to look for his father's asses and discovered a Kingdom. J. V. Armitage Contents Chapter 1. Geometry of Numbers 1 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Lattices 2 1.3. Theorems of Blichfeldt and Minkowski 10 1.4. Successive minima 13 1.5. Inhomogeneous minimum 18 1.6. Problems 21 Chapter 2. Discrete Optimization Problems 23 2.1. Sphere packing, covering and kissing number problems 23 2.2. Lattice packings in dimension 2 29 2.3. Algorithmic problems on lattices 34 2.4. Problems 38 Chapter 3. Quadratic forms 39 3.1. Introduction to quadratic forms 39 3.2. Minkowski's reduction 46 3.3. Sums of squares 49 3.4. Problems 53 Chapter 4. Diophantine Approximation 55 4.1. Real and rational numbers 55 4.2. Algebraic and transcendental numbers 57 4.3. Dirichlet's Theorem 61 4.4. Liouville's theorem and construction of a transcendental number 65 4.5. Roth's theorem 67 4.6. Continued fractions 70 4.7. Kronecker's theorem 76 4.8. Problems 79 Chapter 5. Algebraic Number Theory 82 5.1. Some field theory 82 5.2. Number fields and rings of integers 88 5.3. Noetherian rings and factorization 97 5.4. Norm, trace, discriminant 101 5.5. Fractional ideals 105 5.6. Further properties of ideals 109 5.7. Minkowski embedding 113 5.8. The class group 116 5.9. Dirichlet's unit theorem 119 v vi CONTENTS 5.10. Problems 120 Appendices Appendix A. Some properties of abelian groups 124 Appendix B. Maximum Modulus Principle and Fundamental Theorem of Algebra 127 Appendix. Bibliography 129 CHAPTER 1 Geometry of Numbers 1.1. Introduction The foundations of the Geometry of Numbers were laid down by Hermann Minkowski in his monograph \Geometrie der Zahlen", which was published in 1910, a year after his death. This subject is concerned with the interplay of compact convex 0-symmetric sets and lattices in Euclidean spaces. A set K ⊂ Rn is compact if it is closed and bounded, and it is convex if for any pair of points x; y 2 K the line segment connecting them is entirely contained in K, i.e. for any 0 ≤ t ≤ 1, tx + (1 − t)y 2 K. Further, K is called 0-symmetric if for any x 2 K, −x 2 K. Given such a set K in Rn, one can ask for an easy criterion to determine if K contains any nonzero points with integer coordinates. While for an arbitrary set K such a criterion can be rather difficult, in case of K as above a criterion purely in terms of its volume is provided by Minkowski's fundamental theorem. It is not difficult to see that K must in fact be convex and 0-symmetric for a criterion like this purely in terms of the volume of K to be possible. Indeed, the rectangle 2 R = (x; y) 2 R : 1=3 ≤ x ≤ 2=3; −t ≤ y ≤ t is convex for every t, but not 0-symmetric, and its area is 2t=3, which can be arbitrarily large depending on t while it still contains no integer points at all. On the other hand, the set R+ [ −R+ where R+ = f(x; y) 2 R : y ≥ 0g and −R+ = f(−x; −y):(x; y) 2 R+g is 0-symmetric, but not convex, and again can have arbitrarily large area while containing no integer points. Minkowski's theory applies not only to the integer lattice, but also to more general lattices. Our goal in this chapter is to introduce Minkowski's powerful theory, starting with the basic notions of lattices. 1 2 1. GEOMETRY OF NUMBERS 1.2. Lattices We start with an algebraic definition of lattices. Let a1;:::; ar be a collection of linearly independent vectors in Rn. n Definition 1.2.1. A lattice Λ of rank r, 1 ≤ r ≤ n, spanned by a1;:::; ar in R is the set of all possible linear combinations of the vectors a1;:::; ar with integer coefficients. In other words, ( r ) X Λ = span fa ;:::; a g := n a : n 2 for all 1 ≤ i ≤ r : Z 1 r i i i Z i=1 The set a1;:::; ar is called a basis for Λ. There are usually infinitely many different bases for a given lattice. Notice that in general a lattice in Rn can have any rank 1 ≤ r ≤ n. We will often however talk specifically about lattices of rank n, that is of full rank. The most obvious example of a lattice is the set of all points with integer coordinates in Rn: n Z = fx = (x1; : : : ; xn): xi 2 Z for all 1 ≤ i ≤ ng: Notice that the set of standard basis vectors e1;:::; en, where ei = (0;:::; 0; 1; 0;:::; 0); with 1 in i-th position is a basis for Zn. Another basis is the set of all vectors ei + ei+1; 1 ≤ i ≤ n − 1: n If Λ is a lattice of rank r in R with a basis a1;:::; ar and y 2 Λ, then there exist m1; : : : ; mr 2 Z such that r X y = miai = Am; i=1 where 0 1 m1 B . C r m = @ . A 2 Z ; mr and A is an n × r basis matrix for Λ of the form A = (a1 ::: ar), which has rank r. In other words, a lattice Λ of rank r in Rn can always be described as Λ = AZr, where A is its m×r basis matrix with real entries of rank r. As we remarked above, bases are not unique; as we will see later, each lattice has bases with particularly nice properties. An important property of lattices is discreteness. To explain what we mean more notation is needed. First notice that Euclidean space Rn is clearly not com- pact, since it is not bounded. It is however locally compact: this means that for every point x 2 Rn there exists an open set containing x whose closure is compact, for instance take an open unit ball centered at x. More generally, every subspace V of Rn is also locally compact. A subset Γ of V is called discrete if for each x 2 Γ there exists an open set S ⊆ V such that S \ Γ = fxg. For instance Zn is a discrete subset of Rn: for each point x 2 Zn the open ball of radius 1=2 centered at x contains no other points of Zn. We say that a discrete subset Γ is co-compact 1.2. LATTICES 3 in V if there exists a compact 0-symmetric subset U of V such that the union of translations of U by the points of Γ covers the entire space V , i.e. if [ V = fU + x : x 2 Γg: Here U + x = fu + x : u 2 Ug. Recall that a subset G is a subgroup of the additive abelian group Rn if it satisfies the following conditions: (1) Identity: 0 2 G, (2) Closure: For every x; y 2 G, x + y 2 G, (3) Inverses: For every x 2 G, −x 2 G. By Problems 1.3 and 1.4 a lattice Λ of rank r in Rn is a discrete co-compact subgroup of V = span Λ. In fact, the converse is also true. R Theorem 1.2.1. Let V be an r-dimensional subspace of Rn, and let Γ be a discrete co-compact subgroup of V . Then Γ is a lattice of rank r in Rn. Proof. In other words, we want to prove that Γ has a basis, i.e. that there exists a collection of linearly independent vectors a1;:::; ar in Γ such that Γ = span fa ;:::; a g. We start by inductively constructing a collection of vectors Z 1 r a1;:::; ar, and then show that it has the required properties. Let a1 6= 0 be a point in Γ such that the line segment connecting 0 and a1 contains no other points of Γ. Now assume a1;:::; ai−1, 2 ≤ i ≤ r, have been selected; we want to select ai. Let H = span fa ;:::; a g; i−1 R 1 i−1 and pick any c 2 Γ n Hi−1: such c exists, since Γ 6⊆ Hi−1 (otherwise Γ would not be co-compact in V ). Let Pi be the closed parallelotope spanned by the vectors a1;:::; ai−1; c. Notice that since Γ is discrete in V ,Γ \ Pi is a finite set. Moreover, since c 2 Pi,Γ \ Pi 6⊆ Hi−1. Then select ai such that d(ai;Hi−1) = min fd(y;Hi−1)g; y2(Pi\Γ)nHi−1 where for any point y 2 Rn, d(y;Hi−1) = inf fd(y; x)g: x2Hi−1 Let a1;:::; ar be the collection of points chosen in this manner. Then we have a 6= 0; a 2= span fa ;:::; a g 8 2 ≤ i ≤ r; 1 i Z 1 i−1 which means that a1;:::; ar are linearly independent. Clearly, span fa ;:::; a g ⊆ Γ: Z 1 r We will now show that Γ ⊆ span fa ;:::; a g: Z 1 r First of all notice that a1;:::; ar is certainly a basis for V , and so if x 2 Γ ⊆ V , then there exist c1; : : : ; cr 2 R such that r X x = ciai: i=1 4 1. GEOMETRY OF NUMBERS Notice that r X x0 = [c ]a 2 span fa ;:::; a g ⊆ Γ; i i Z 1 r i=1 where [ ] stands for the integer part function (i.e.