English

Quadratic Irrationals, Generating Functions, and L\'evy Constants

Number Theory 2018-05-03 v2 Combinatorics Dynamical Systems

Abstract

We show that the generating function corresponding to the sequence of denominators of the best rational approximants of a quadratic irrational is a rational function with integer coefficients. Consequently we can compute the L\'evy constant of any quadratic irrational explicitly in terms of a finite number of its convergents.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.08990,
  title  = {Quadratic Irrationals, Generating Functions, and L\'evy Constants},
  author = {Anna Belova and Peter Hazard},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.08990},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Section 1 (Introduction) and Section 3 rewritten. Some minor corrections. 5 figures added. 29 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T22:24:42.426Z