Winning property of badly approximable points on curves

Abstract: In this paper we prove that badly approximable points on any analytic non-degenerate curve in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is an absolute winning set. This confirms a key conjecture in the area stated by Badziahin and Velani (2014) which represents a far-reaching generalisation of Davenport's problem from the 1960s. Amongst various consequences of our main result is a solution to Bugeaud's problem on real numbers badly approximable by algebraic numbers of arbitrary degree. The proof relies on new ideas from fractal geometry and homogeneous dynamics.