Approximation by algebraic numbers and homogeneous dynamics

Diophantine approximation quantifies the density of the rational numbers in the real line. The extension of this theory to algebraic numbers raises many natural questions. I will focus on a dynamical resolution to Davenport’s problem and show that there are uncountably many badly approximable pairs on the parabola. The proof uses the Kleinbock–Margulis uniform estimate for nondivergence of nondegenerate curves in the space of lattices and a variant of Schmidt’s game. The same ideas applied to Ahlfors-regular measures show the existence of real numbers which are badly approximable by algebraic numbers. This talk is based on joint works with Victor Beresnevich and Lei Yang.