Back to Ishan Levy’s website

Geometry of Numbers

1 Minkowski

  • Lemma 1.1. An additive subgroup of \(\RR ^n\) is discrete iff it is freely generated by \(\leq n\) \(\RR \)-linearly independent elements. For elements of a discrete subgroup, being \(\QQ \)-linearly independent and \(\RR \)-linearly independent is the same.

  • Proof. If it is freely generated by \(\RR \)-linearly independent things, it is clearly discrete. If it is discrete, we can assume that the \(\RR \)-span of the elements is everything. Take the subgroup generated by by some \(\RR \)-basis in the subgroup to get a torus. By discreteness, the image of the subgroup in the quotient is finite, so the entire group must also be freely generated by \(\RR \)-linearly independent elements. This also proves the second statement.

A lattice is a discrete subgroup with full \(\RR \)-rank. The area of a lattice \(L\) is the area of \(\RR ^n/L\), which is a torus, so is finite. It will be denoted \(A(L)\), and can be computed as the absolute value of the determinant of a basis.

  • Lemma 1.2. If a measurable set \(S\) has area more than \(A(L)\), then two points must be congruent mod \(L\). If moreover it is compact, then we can require that it have area at least \(A(L)\).

  • Proof. Look at the image of the set in \(\RR ^n/L\).

  • Lemma 1.3. If \(S\) is symmetric about the origin and convex, and has area at least \(2^nA(L)\), then \(S\) contains a nonzero lattice point.

  • Proof. There are \(x\neq y\) congruent mod \(2L\). Then \(\frac {x-y}{2}\) is a nonzero lattice point.