Cantor Staircases in Physics and Diophantine Approximations

Abstract

For a wide class of dynamical systems the variables involved relate to one another through a Cantor staircase function. When they are time variables, the staircases have well-known universal properties that suggest a connection with certain classical problems in Number Theory. In this paper we extend some of those universal properties to certain Cantor staircases that appear in Quantum Mechanics, where the variables involved are not time variables. We also develop some connections between the geometry of these Cantor staircases and the problem of approximating irrational numbers of rational ones, classical in Number Theory.