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How to find the limit points of the set $\{\ a+\alpha\ b \mid a,b \in \mathbb Z, \ \alpha\ \text{is a fixed irrational number} \}$

limit point: A point $x$ is said to be a limit point of a non empty set $X,$ if every deleted neighborhood of $x$ contains at least a point in $X.$

Equivalently, There is a sequence $(x_n)$ in $X$ such that $(x_n)\to x.$

Using this definition, how can I find the limit points of the set $\{\ a+\alpha\ b \mid a,b \in \mathbb Z, \ \alpha\ \text{is a fixed irrational number} \}$ ?

Hints will be greatly appreciated...

  • Hint: take $\epsilon$ as any point from $\mathbb{R}$ and see if you can get near to it with an appropriate $\alpha$. – Martigan May 27 '15 at 12:01
  • @Martigan could i fix $\alpha$? – Mirunalini_UML May 27 '15 at 12:03
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    With "$\alpha$ is irrational" inside the brackets, this is very easy. I assume the source of the question does not have that inside the brackets, but has one fixed $\alpha$ in mind. That would be a standard problem. – GEdgar May 27 '15 at 12:58
  • See also: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/136665/for-every-irrational-alpha-the-set-ab-alpha-a-b-in-mathbbz-is-den – Martin Sleziak Sep 16 '15 at 07:45

2 Answers2

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Let: $$S=\{m\alpha+n;\,m\in \mathbb N, n\in \mathbb Z\}$$ We claim that $\overline S =\mathbb R$. Then, $$S\subset K=\{a+b\alpha;a,b \in \mathbb Z\}$$ imply that $\mathbb R=\overline S\subseteq \overline K\subseteq \mathbb R$.
It's easy to see that, if $\zeta \in S$, then $k\zeta +m \in S$ for any $k\in \mathbb N$ and $m\in \mathbb Z$.
lemma: For every $m\in \mathbb N$, there is $\zeta \in S$ such that $|\zeta|\lt \frac 1m$.
Proof: Consider: $\zeta_n=n\alpha-[n\alpha]$ for $n=1,2,...,m+1$. ([x] denotes the greatest integer not greater than x.) Then, $\zeta_n\in S$ and $0\lt \zeta_n \lt 1$ and more, if $k\neq j$, $0\neq \zeta_k-\zeta_j \in S$. Consider the $m$ intervals: $(\frac{j-1}{m},\frac{j}{m})$ for $j=1,2,...,m$. Each $\zeta_n$ is irrational and $0\lt \zeta_n \lt 1$. So, each $\zeta_n$, belong to one of this intervals. But, the number of $\zeta_n$ is $m+1$ and the number of this intervals, is $m$. Thus, there are $k\lt i$ such that $\zeta_k,\zeta_i \in (\frac{j-1}{m},\frac{j}{m})$ for some $1\le j\le m$. This means, $|\zeta_k-\zeta_i|\lt \frac 1m$ and $\zeta=\zeta_i-\zeta_k \in S$.
Now, let $x\in \mathbb R$ be arbitrary and $\epsilon \gt 0$ be given. We know that there is $m\in \mathbb N$, such that: $\frac 1m \lt \epsilon$. Now, by above lemma, there is $\zeta \in S$, such that: $|\zeta|\lt \frac 1m$. If $0\lt \zeta \lt \frac 1m$, we can find $n\in \mathbb Z$, such that, $x+n\gt 0$. then let $k\in \mathbb Z$ be the smallest positive integer such that: $k\zeta \gt x+n$. Then, $\eta=k\zeta-n\in S$ and: $x\lt \eta \lt x+\frac 1m$. If: $-\frac 1m \lt \zeta \lt 0$, we can chose $n\in \mathbb Z$, such that: $x+n \lt0$. Now, chose $k$ the largest positive integer such that: $k\zeta \lt x+n$ and put: $\eta=k\zeta -n \in S$. Then: $x-\frac 1m \lt \eta \lt x$.

hamid kamali
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I'm going to show that the set $A=\{n+m\alpha\,|\,m,n\in\mathbb Z\}$ is dense in $\mathbb R$. For this I will show that $A$ intersects every open interval in the real line.

Suppose that $(a,b)$ is an arbitrary non-empty interval in the real line. Then by Dirichlet's approximation theorem there exists integers $m,n$ such that $$ 0<|m\alpha+n|<b-a $$ Now for some natural integer $N$ we must have $a<N|m\alpha+n|<b$, but $N|m\alpha+n|\in A$ as we wanted.

k1.M
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