English

Duke's Theorem and Continued Fractions

Number Theory 2008-02-21 v1 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

For uniformly chosen random α[0,1]\alpha \in [0,1], it is known the probability the nthn^{\rm th} digit of the continued-fraction expansion, [α]n[\alpha]_n converges to the Gauss-Kuzmin distribution P([α]n=k)log2(1+1/k(k+2))\mathbb{P}([\alpha]_n = k) \approx \log_2 (1 + 1/ k(k+2)) as nn \to \infty. In this paper, we show the continued fraction digits of d\sqrt{d}, which are eventually periodic, also converge to the Gauss-Kuzmin distribution as dd \to \infty with bounded class number, h(d)h(d). The proof uses properties of the geodesic flow in the unit tangent bundle of the modular surface, T1(SL2Z\H)T^1(\text{SL}_2 \mathbb{Z}\backslash \mathbb{H}).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0802.2924,
  title  = {Duke's Theorem and Continued Fractions},
  author = {John Mangual},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0802.2924},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

9 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:14:19.752Z