Approximation to real numbers by cubic algebraic integers II

Abstract

It has been conjectured for some time that, for any integer n\ge 2, any real number ε>0 and any transcendental real number ξ, there would exist infinitely many algebraic integers αof degree at most n with the property that |ξ-α| < H(α)^{-n+ε}, where H(α) denotes the height of α. Although this is true for n=2, we show here that, for n=3, the optimal exponent of approximation is not 3 but (3+\sqrt{5})/2 = 2.618...