English

Lower rational approximations and Farey staircases

Number Theory 2024-02-05 v2

Abstract

For a real number xx, call 1nnx\frac1n \lfloor nx \rfloor the nn-th lower rational approximation of xx. We study the functions defined by taking the cumulative average of the first nn lower rational approximations of xx, which we call the Farey staircase functions. This sequence of functions is monotonically increasing. We determine limit behavior of these functions and show that they exhibit fractal structure under appropriate normalization.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.02935,
  title  = {Lower rational approximations and Farey staircases},
  author = {David Harry Richman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.02935},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

14 pages, 7 figures, comments welcome! v2: Final version, to appear in Integers

R2 v1 2026-06-28T09:02:50.510Z