The area of empty axis-parallel boxes amidst 2-dimensional lattice points

Abstract

The dispersion of a point set in the unit square is the area of the largest empty axis-parallel box. In this paper we are interested in the dispersion of lattices in the plane, that is, the supremum of the area of the empty axis-parallel boxes amidst the lattice points. We introduce a framework with which to study this based on the continued fractions expansions of the lattice generators. We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which a lattice has finite dispersion. We obtain an exact formula for the dispersion of the lattices associated to subrings of the ring of integers of quadratic fields. We have tight bounds for the dispersion of a lattice based on the largest continued fraction coefficient of the generators, accurate to within one half. We provide an equivalent formulation of Zaremba's conjecture. Using this framework we are able to give very short proofs of previous results.