English

A density theorem on even Farey fractions

Number Theory 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

Let FQF_Q be the Farey sequence of order QQ and let FQ,oF_{Q,o} and FQ,eF_{Q,e} be the set of those Farey fractions of order QQ with odd, respectively even denominators. A fundamental property of FQF_Q says that the sum of denominators of any pair of neighbor fractions is always greater than QQ. This property fails for FQ,oF_{Q,o} and for FQ,eF_{Q,e}. The local density, as QQ\to\infty, of the normalized pairs (q/Q,q/Q)(q'/Q,q''/Q), where q,qq',q'' are denominators of consecutive fractions in FQ,oF_{Q,o}, was computed previously. The density increases over a series of quadrilateral steps ascending in a harmonic series towards the point (1,1)(1,1). Numerical computations for small values of QQ suggest that such a result should rather occur in the even case, while in the odd case the distribution of the corresponding points appears to be more uniform. Reconciling with the numerical experiments, in this paper we show that, as QQ\to\infty, the local densities in the odd and even case coincide.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0511362,
  title  = {A density theorem on even Farey fractions},
  author = {Cristian Cobeli and Alexandru Zaharescu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0511362},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

35 pages, 6 figures