English

Quadratic irrationals and linking numbers of modular knots

Number Theory 2012-05-11 v1 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

A closed geodesic on the modular surface gives rise to a knot on the 3-sphere with a trefoil knot removed, and one can compute the linking number of such a knot with the trefoil knot. We show that, when ordered by their length, the set of closed geodesics having a prescribed linking number become equidistributed on average with respect to the Liouville measure. We show this by using the thermodynamic formalism to prove an equidistribution result for a corresponding set of quadratic irrationals on the unit interval.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1205.2230,
  title  = {Quadratic irrationals and linking numbers of modular knots},
  author = {Dubi Kelmer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.2230},
  year   = {2012}
}