Khintchine's Theorem with random fractions

Abstract

We prove versions of Khintchine's Theorem (1924) for approximations by rational numbers whose numerators lie in randomly chosen sets of integers, and we explore the extent to which the monotonicity assumption can be removed. Roughly speaking, we show that if the number of available fractions for each denominator grows too fast, then the monotonicity assumption cannot be removed. There are questions in this random setting which may be seen as cognates of the Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture (1941), and are likely to be more accessible. We point out that the direct random analogue of the Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture, like the Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture itself, implies Catlin's Conjecture (1976). It is not obvious whether the Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture and its random version imply one another, and it is not known whether Catlin's Conjecture implies either of them. The question of whether Catlin implies Duffin-Schaeffer has been unsettled for decades.