Rational Points and Brownian Motion

Abstract

Given a real-valued function $f$, let $\mathcal{N}_f(\delta, Q)$ be the number of rational points with denominators at most $Q\ge 1$ in the $(\delta/Q)$-tubular neighbourhood of the graph of the function $f$. A heuristic predicts that the number of such points grows like the area of the neighbourhood provided that $\delta$ is big enough (in a suitable sense). Considerable efforts have been committed to prove this heuristic for regular curves. This culminated in the works by Vaughan \&Velani~(2006) and by Huang~(2015) establishing an asymptotic expansion for $\mathcal{N}_f(\delta, Q)$ provided that $\delta\gg Q^{-1+\epsilon}$ for some $\epsilon>0$ when the map $f$ is, among other assumptions, twice continuously differentiable. The present work deals with the thus-far unexplored regime where minimal regularity conditions are imposed on the curve. More precisely, it is concerned with the case where the map $f$ is an a.s. realisation of the graph of Brownian motion. The main result establishes the existence of an almost sure asymptotic expansion for the counting function for all values of $\delta$, with the exception of a critical regime, thereby going well beyond the theory currently available for regular curves. A key ingredient in the proof is the derivation of the area heuristic, which relies on establishing the a.s. asymptotics of the area of the tubular neighbourhood of the graph of Brownian motion. This result has two main consequences: firstly, it completes the counting aspect of the theory of Diophantine approximation on the graph of Brownian motion initiated by Sprind\v{z}uk (1979). Secondly, it hints at the existence of a theory unifying the analysis of rational points near a curve on the one hand and, on the other, its local H\"older regularity and fine-scale oscillations. It thus builds a seemingly new bridge between Number Theory and Multifractal Analysis.