Diophantine approximation with prime denominator in real quadratic function fields

Abstract

In the thirties of the last century, I. M. Vinogradov proved that the inequality $||p\alpha||\le p^{-1/5+\varepsilon}$ has infinitely prime solutions $p$, where $||.||$ denotes the distance to a nearest integer. This result has subsequently been improved by many authors. In particular, Vaughan (1978) replaced the exponent $1/5$ by $1/4$ using his celebrated identity for the von Mangoldt function and a refinement of Fourier analytic arguments. The current record is due to Matom\"aki (2009) who showed the infinitude of prime solutions of the inequality $||p\alpha||\le p^{-1/3+\varepsilon}$. This exponent $1/3$ is considered the limit of the current technology. Recently, in \cite{BaMo}, the authors established an analogue of Matom\"aki's result for imaginary quadratic extensions of the function field $k=\mathbb{F}_q(T)$. In this paper, we consider the case of real quadratic extensions of $k$ of class number 1, for which we prove a function field analogue of Vaughan's above-mentioned result (exponent $\theta=1/4$). Our method uses versions of Vaughan's identity and the Dirichlet approximation theorem for function fields. The latter was established by Arijit Ganguly in the appendix to our previous paper \cite{BaMo} on the imaginary quadratic case. We also simplify arguments in the paper \cite{BM} on the same problem for real quadratic number fields by D. Mazumder and the first-named author.