The Minkowski chain and Diophantine approximation

Abstract

The Hurwitz chain gives a sequence of pairs of Farey approximations to an irrational real number. Minkowski gave a criterion for a number to be algebraic by using a certain generalization of the Hurwitz chain. We apply Minkowski's generalization (the Minkowski chain) to give criteria for a real linear form to be either badly approximable or singular. We also give a variant of Dirichlet's approximation theorem for a real linear form that produces a whole basis of approximating integral vectors rather than a single one. This result holds if and only if the form is badly approximable. The proofs rely on properties of successive minima and reduced bases of lattices.