Diophantine approximation, Khintchine's theorem, torus geometry and Hausdorff dimension

Abstract

A general form of the Borel-Cantelli Lemma and its connection with the proof of Khintchine's Theorem on Diophantine approximation and the more general Khintchine-Groshev theorem are discussed. The torus geometry in the planar case allows a relatively direct proof of the planar Groshev theorem for the set of $\psi$-approximable points in the plane. The construction and use of Haudsorff measure and dimension are explained and the notion of ubiquity, which is effective in estimating the lower bound of the Hausdorff dimension for quite general lim sup sets, is described. An application is made to obtain the Hausdorff dimension of the set of approximable points in the plane when $\psi(q)=q^{-v}$, $v>0$, corresponding to the planar Jarnik-Besicovich theorem.