Discrete Subsets of Totally Imaginary Quartic Algebraic Integers in the Complex Plane

Wenhan Wang

Published 2012-09-03Version 1

Algebraic integers in totally imaginary quartic number fields are not discrete in the complex plane under a fixed embedding, which makes it impossible to visualize all integers in the plane, unlike the quadratic imaginary algebraic integers. In this note we consider a naturally occurring discrete subset of the algebraic integers with similar properties as lattices. For the fifth cyclotomic field, we investigate those integers with absolute values under a fixed embedding in a given bound. We show that such integers form a discrete set in the complex plane. It is observed that this subset has quasi-periodic appearance. In particular, we also show that the distance between a fixed point to the most adjacent point in this subset takes only two possible values.