Using the special value at $u=1$ of Artin–Ihara L-functions, we associate to every $\mathbb {Z}$-cover of a finite connected graph a polynomial, which we call the Ihara polynomial. We show that the number of spanning trees for the finite intermediate graphs of such a cover can be expressed in terms of the Pierce–Lehmer sequence associated to a factor of the Ihara polynomial. This allows us to express the asymptotic growth of the number of spanning trees in terms of the Mahler measure of this polynomial. Specialising to the situation where the base graph is a bouquet or the dumbbell graph gives us back previous results in the literature for circulant and I-graphs (including the generalised Petersen graphs). We also express the p-adic valuation of the number of spanning trees of the finite intermediate graphs in terms of the p-adic Mahler measure of the Ihara polynomial. When applied to a particular $\mathbb {Z}$-cover, our result gives us back Lengyel’s calculation of the p-adic valuations of Fibonacci numbers.

In this note, we prove that every Salem number is expressible as a difference of two Pisot numbers. More precisely, we show that for each Salem number α of degree d, there are infinitely many positive integers n for which $\alpha^{2n-1}-\alpha^n+\alpha$ and $\alpha^{2n-1}-\alpha^n$ are both Pisot numbers of degree d and that the smallest such n is at most $6^{d/2-1}+1$. We also prove that every real positive algebraic number can be expressed as a quotient of two Pisot numbers. Earlier, Salem himself had proved that every Salem number can be written in this way.

By analogy with the trace of an algebraic integer $\alpha $ with conjugates $\alpha _1=\alpha , \ldots , \alpha _d$ , we define the G-measure $ {\mathrm {G}} (\alpha )= \sum _{i=1}^d ( |\alpha _i| + 1/ | \alpha _i | )$ and the absolute ${\mathrm G}$ -measure ${\mathrm {g}}(\alpha )={\mathrm {G}}(\alpha )/d$ . We establish an analogue of the Schur–Siegel–Smyth trace problem for totally positive algebraic integers. Then we consider the case where $\alpha $ has all its conjugates in a sector $| \arg z | \leq \theta $ , $0 < \theta < 90^{\circ }$ . We compute the greatest lower bound $c(\theta )$ of the absolute G-measure of $\alpha $ , for $\alpha $ belonging to $11$ consecutive subintervals of $]0, 90 [$ . This phenomenon appears here for the first time, conforming to a conjecture of Rhin and Smyth on the nature of the function $c(\theta )$ . All computations are done by the method of explicit auxiliary functions.

Let $\alpha $ be a totally positive algebraic integer of degree d, with conjugates $\alpha _1=\alpha , \alpha _2, \ldots , \alpha _d$ . The absolute $S_k$ -measure of $\alpha $ is defined by $s_k(\alpha )= d^{-1} \sum _{i=1}^{d}\alpha _i^k$ . We compute the lower bounds $\upsilon _k$ of $s_k(\alpha )$ for each integer in the range $2\leq k \leq 15$ and give a conjecture on the results for integers $k>15$ . Then we derive the lower bounds of $s_k(\alpha )$ for all real numbers $k>2$ . Our computation is based on an improvement in the application of the LLL algorithm and analysis of the polynomials in the explicit auxiliary functions.

The cusped hyperbolic n-orbifolds of minimal volume are well known for $n\leq 9$ . Their fundamental groups are related to the Coxeter n-simplex groups $\Gamma _{n}$ . In this work, we prove that $\Gamma _{n}$ has minimal growth rate among all non-cocompact Coxeter groups of finite covolume in $\textrm{Isom}\mathbb H^{n}$ . In this way, we extend previous results of Floyd for $n=2$ and of Kellerhals for $n=3$ , respectively. Our proof is a generalization of the methods developed together with Kellerhals for the cocompact case.

For an (irreducible) recurrence equation with coefficients from $\mathbb Z[n]$ and its two linearly independent rational solutions $u_n,v_n$ , the limit of $u_n/v_n$ as $n\to \infty $ , when it exists, is called the Apéry limit. We give a construction that realises certain quotients of L-values of elliptic curves as Apéry limits.

Motivated by a famous question of Lehmer about the Mahler measure, we study and solve its analytic analogue.

Using an idea of Doug Lind, we give a lower bound for the Perron–Frobenius degree of a Perron number that is not totally real, in terms of the layout of its Galois conjugates in the complex plane. As an application, we prove that there are cubic Perron numbers whose Perron–Frobenius degrees are arbitrary large, a result known to Lind, McMullen and Thurston. A similar result is proved for bi-Perron numbers.

In this paper we extend and generalize, up to a natural bound of the method, our previous work Badziahin and Zorin [‘Thue–Morse constant is not badly approximable’, Int. Math. Res. Not. IMRN 19 (2015), 9618–9637] where we proved, among other things, that the Thue–Morse constant is not badly approximable. Here we consider Laurent series defined with infinite products $f_{d}(x)=\prod _{n=0}^{\infty }(1-x^{-d^{n}})$, $d\in \mathbb{N}$, $d\geq 2$, which generalize the generating function $f_{2}(x)$ of the Thue–Morse number, and study their continued fraction expansion. In particular, we show that the convergents of $x^{-d+1}f_{d}(x)$ have a regular structure. We also address the question of whether the corresponding Mahler numbers $f_{d}(a)\in \mathbb{R}$, $a,d\in \mathbb{N}$, $a,d\geq 2$, are badly approximable.

Consider a finite sequence of linear contractions ${{S}_{j}}(x)\,=\,\rho x\,+{{d}_{j}}$ and probabilities $pj\,>\,0$ with $\Sigma \,{{p}_{j}}\,=\,1$. We are interested in the self-similar measure $\mu \,=\,\Sigma \,{{p}_{j}}\,\mu \,{}^\circ \,s_{j}^{-1}$, of finite type. In this paper we study the multi-fractal analysis of such measures, extending the theory to measures arising from non-regular probabilities and whose support is not necessarily an interval.

Under some mild technical assumptions, we prove that there exists a subset of supp $\mu $ of full $\mu $ and Hausdorff measure, called the truly essential class, for which the set of (upper or lower) local dimensions is a closed interval. Within the truly essential class we show that there exists a point with local dimension exactly equal to the dimension of the support. We give an example where the set of local dimensions is a two element set, with all the elements of the truly essential class giving the same local dimension. We give general criteria for these measures to be absolutely continuous with respect to the associated Hausdorff measure of their support, and we show that the dimension of the support can be computed using only information about the essential class.

To conclude, we present a detailed study of three examples. First, we show that the set of local dimensions of the biased Bernoulli convolution with contraction ratio the inverse of a simple Pisot number always admits an isolated point. We give a precise description of the essential class of a generalized Cantor set of finite type, and show that the $k$-th convolution of the associated Cantor measure has local dimension at $x\,\in \,(0,\,1)$ tending to 1 as $k$ tends to infinity. Lastly, we show that within a maximal loop class that is not truly essential, the set of upper local dimensions need not be an interval. This is in contrast to the case for finite type measures with regular probabilities and full interval support.

We prove Lawton's conjecture about the upper bound on themeasure of the set on the unit circle on which a complex polynomial with a bounded number of coefficients takes small values. Namely, we prove that Lawton's bound holds for polynomials that are not necessarily monic. We also provide an analogous bound for polynomials in several variables. Finally, we investigate the dependence of the bound on the multiplicity of zeros for polynomials in one variable.

In this paper, we provide an explicit upper bound for the Loxton–Kedlaya rank of the maximal abelian extension of ℚ.

We investigate the numbers of complex zeros of Littlewood polynomials $p\left( z \right)$ (polynomials with coefficients {−1, 1}) inside or on the unit circle $\left| z \right|\,=\,1$, denoted by $N\left( p \right)$ and $U\left( p \right)$, respectively. Two types of Littlewood polynomials are considered: Littlewood polynomials with one sign change in the sequence of coefficients and Littlewood polynomials with one negative coefficient. We obtain explicit formulas for $N\left( p \right)$, $U\left( p \right)$ for polynomials $p\left( z \right)$ of these types. We show that if $n\,+\,1$ is a prime number, then for each integer $k,\,0\,⩽\,k\,⩽\,n-1$, there exists a Littlewood polynomial $p\left( z \right)$ of degree $n$ with $N\left( p \right)\,=\,k$ and $U\left( p \right)\,=\,0$. Furthermore, we describe some cases where the ratios $N\left( p \right)/n$ and $U\left( p \right)/n$ have limits as $n\,\to \,\infty $ and find the corresponding limit values.

One way to study certain classes of polynomials is by considering examples that are attached to combinatorial objects. Any graph $G$ has an associated reciprocal polynomial $R_{G}$, and with two particular classes of reciprocal polynomials in mind one can ask the questions: (a) when is $R_{G}$ a product of cyclotomic polynomials (giving the cyclotomic graphs)? (b) when does $R_{G}$ have the minimal polynomial of a Salem number as its only non-cyclotomic factor (the non-trivial Salem graphs)? Cyclotomic graphs were classified by Smith (Combinatorial structures and their applications, Proceedings of Calgary International Conference, Calgary, AB, 1969 (eds R. Guy, H. Hanani, H. Saver and J. Schönheim; Gordon and Breach, New York, 1970) 403–406); the maximal connected ones are known as Smith graphs. Salem graphs are ‘spectrally close’ to being cyclotomic, in that nearly all their eigenvalues are in the critical interval $[-2,2]$. On the other hand, Salem graphs do not need to be ‘combinatorially close’ to being cyclotomic: the largest cyclotomic induced subgraph might be comparatively tiny.

We define an $m$-Salem graph to be a connected Salem graph $G$ for which $m$ is minimal such that there exists an induced cyclotomic subgraph of $G$ that has $m$ fewer vertices than $G$. The $1$-Salem subgraphs are both spectrally close and combinatorially close to being cyclotomic. Moreover, every Salem graph contains a $1$-Salem graph as an induced subgraph, so these $1$-Salem graphs provide some necessary substructure of all Salem graphs. The main result of this paper is a complete combinatorial description of all $1$-Salem graphs: in the non-bipartite case there are $25$ infinite families and $383$ sporadic examples.

The Mahler measure of a nonzero $n$-variable polynomial $P$ is the integral of $\log \,\left| P \right|$ on the unit $n$-torus. A result of Boyd and Lawton says that the Mahler measure of a multivariate polynomial is the limit of Mahler measures of univariate polynomials. We prove the analogous result for different extensions of Mahler measure such as generalized Mahler measure (integrating the maximum of $\log \,\left| P \right|$ for possibly different ${{P}^{'}}\text{s}$), multiple Mahler measure (involving products of $\log \,\left| P \right|$ for possibly different ${{P}^{'}}\text{s}$), and higher Mahler measure (involving ${{\log }^{k}}\,\left| P \right|$).

We present a general construction of Salem numbers via rational functions whose zeros and poles mostly lie on the unit circle and satisfy an interlacing condition. This extends and unifies earlier work. We then consider the “obvious” limit points of the set of Salem numbers produced by our theorems and show that these are all Pisot numbers, in support of a conjecture of Boyd. We then show that all Pisot numbers arise in this way. Combining this with a theorem of Boyd, we produce all Salem numbers via an interlacing construction.

We provide evaluations of several recently studied higher and multiple Mahler measures using log-sine integrals. This is complemented with an analysis of generating functions and identities for log-sine integrals which allows the evaluations to be expressed in terms of zeta values or more general polylogarithmic terms. The machinery developed is then applied to evaluation of further families of multiple Mahler measures.

We prove the conjectural relations between Mahler measures and L-values of elliptic curves of conductors 20 and 24. We also present new hypergeometric expressions for L-values of elliptic curves of conductors 27 and 36. Furthermore, we prove a new functional equation for the Mahler measure of the polynomial family (1+X) (1+Y )(X+Y )−αXY, α∈ℝ.

Let θ be a real number greater than 1, and let (()) be the fractional part function. Then, θ is said to be a Z-number if there is a non-zero real number λ such that ((λθn)) < for all n ∈ ℕ. Dubickas (A. Dubickas, Even and odd integral parts of powers of a real number, Glasg. Math. J., 48 (2006), 331–336) showed that strong Pisot numbers are Z-numbers. Here it is proved that θ is a strong Pisot number if and only if there exists λ ≠ 0 such that ((λα)) < for all. Also, the following characterisation of Pisot numbers among real numbers greater than 1 is shown: θ is a Pisot number ⇔ ∃ λ ≠ 0 such thatfor allan ∈ {0,1}, N ∈ ℕ}, where ‖λα‖ = min{((λα)), 1 − ((λα))}.