The focus of this paper is on formal power series analogs of the golden ratio. We are interested in both their continued fractions expansions as well as their Laurent series expansions. Our approach studies the Hankel matrices that are determined using the coefficients of the Laurent series expansions.
The classical continued fraction is generalized for studying the rational approximation problem on multi-formal Laurent series in this paper, the construction is called m-continued fraction. It is proved that the approximants of an m-continued fraction converge to a multi-formal Laurent series, and are best rational approximations to it; conversely for any multi-formal Laurent series an algorithm called m-CF transform is introduced to obtain its m-continued fraction expansions; moreover, strict m-continued fractions, which are m-continued fractions imposed with some additional conditions, and …
We study quadratic approximations for two families of hyperquadratic continued fractions in the field of Laurent series over a finite field. As the first application, we give the answer to a question of the second author concerning Diophantine exponents for algebraic Laurent series. As the second application, we determine the degrees of these families in particular case.
Motivated by recent developments in the metrical theory of continued fractions for real numbers concerning the growth of consecutive partial quotients, we consider its analogue over the field of formal Laurent series. Let $A_n(x)$ be the $n$th partial quotient of the continued fraction expansion of $x$ in the field of formal Laurent series. We consider the sets of $x$ such that $°A_{n+1}(x)+\cdots+°A_{n+k}(x)~\ge~Φ(n)$ holds for infinitely many $n$ and for all $n$ respectively, where $k\ge1$ is an integer and $Φ(n)$ is a positive function defined on $\mathbb{N}$. We determine the size of these…
Ramanujan recorded four reciprocity formulas for the Roger-Ramanujan continued fraction. Two reciprocity formulas each are also associated with the Ramanujan--Göllnitz--Gordon continued fraction and a level-13 analog of the Roger-Ramanujan continued fraction. We show that all eight reciprocity formulas are related to a pair of quadratic equations. The solution to the first equation generalizes the golden ratio and is used to set the value of a coefficient in the second equation; and the solution to the second equation gives a pair of values for a continued fraction. We relate the coefficients …
There is a theory of continued fractions for Laurent series in x^{-1} with coefficients in a field F. This theory bears a close analogy with classical continued fractions for real numbers with Laurent series playing the role of real numbers and the sum of the terms of non-negative degree in x playing the role of the integral part. In this paper we survey the Laurent series u, with coefficients in a finite extension of gf(2), that satisfy an irreducible equation of the form a_0(x)+ a_1(x)u+a_2(x)u^2 + a_3(x)u^3=0 with a_3 \ne 0 and where the a_i are polynomials of low degree in x with coefficie…
In this expository paper written to commemorate Fibonacci Day 2016, we discuss famous relations involving the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio, continued fractions and nested radicals, and show how these fit into a more general framework stemming from the quadratic formula.
For a monic polynomial $D(X)$ of even degree, express $\sqrt D$ as a Laurent series in $X^{-1}$; this yields a continued fraction expansion (similar to continued fractions of real numbers): \[\sqrt D=a_0+\dfrac{1}{a_1+\dfrac{1}{a_2+\dfrac{1}{\ddots}}},\quad a_i\text{ polynomials in }X.\] Such continued fractions were first considered by Abel in 1826, and later by Chebyshev. It turns out they are rarely periodic unless $D$ is defined over a finite field. Around 2001 van der Poorten studied non-periodic continued fractions of $\sqrt D$, with $D$ defined over the rationals, and simultaneously the…
An Engel series is a sum of the reciprocals of an increasing sequence of positive integers, which is such that each term is divisible by the previous one. Here we consider a particular class of Engel series, for which each term of the sequence is divisible by the square of the preceding one, and find an explicit expression for the continued fraction expansion of the sum of a generic series of this kind. As a special case, this includes certain series whose continued fraction expansion was found by Shallit. A family of examples generated by nonlinear recurrences with the Laurent property is con…
We determine the classical approximation constants $w_{3}(ζ),w_{3}^{\ast}(ζ),λ_{3}(ζ)$ such as the uniform constants $\widehat{w}_{3}(ζ),\widehat{w}_{3}^{\ast}(ζ),\widehatλ_{3}(ζ)$ associated to real numbers $ζ$ whose continued fraction expansions are given by a Sturmian word. We more generally provide a description of the combined graph of the parametric successive minima functions defined by Schmidt and Summerer in dimension three for such Sturmian continued fractions. This both complements similar results due to Bugeaud and Laurent concerning the two-dimensional constants and generalizes a …
Euler gave recipes for converting alternating series of two types, I and II, into equivalent continued fractions, i.e., ones whose convergents equal the partial sums. A condition we prove for irrationality of a continued fraction then allows easy proofs that $e,\sin1$, and the primorial constant are irrational. Our main result is that, if a series of type II is equivalent to a simple continued fraction, then the sum is transcendental and its irrationality measure exceeds $2$. We construct all $\aleph_0^{\aleph_0}=\mathfrak{c}$ such series and recover the transcendence of the Davison--Shallit a…
It is possible to define a continued fraction expansion of elements in a function field of a curve by expanding as a Laurent series in a local parameter. Considering the square root of a polynomial $\sqrt{D(t)}$ leads to an interesting theory related to polynomial Pell equations. Unlike the classical Pell equation, the corresponding polynomial equation is not always solvable and its solvability is related to arithmetic conditions on the Jacobian (or generalized Jacobian) of the curve defined by $y^2=D(t)$. In this setting, it has been shown by Zannier in \cite{zannier} that the sequence of the…
We examine the polynomial analogues of McMullen's and Zaremba's conjectures on continued fractions with bounded partial quotients. It has already been proved by Blackburn that if the base field is infinite, then the polynomial analogue of Zaremba's conjecture holds; we will prove this again with a different method and examine some known results for finite base fields. Translating to the polynomial setting a result of Mercat, we will prove that the polynomial analogue of McMullen's conjecture holds over infinite algebraic extensions of finite fields and that, over finite fields, it would be a c…
We prove an explicit formula for infinitely many convergents of Hurwitzian continued fractions that repeat several copies of the same constant and elements of one arithmetic progression, in a quasi-periodic fashion. The proof involves combinatorics and formal Laurent series. Using very little analysis we can express their limits in terms of (modified) Bessel functions and Fibonacci polynomials. The limit formula is a generalization of Lehmer's theorem that implies the continuous fraction expansions of $e$ and $\tan(1)$, and it can also be derived from Lehmer's work using Fibonacci polynomial i…
In this paper, we study Diophantine exponents $w_n$ and $w_n ^{*}$ for Laurent series over a finite field. Especially, we deal with the case $n=2$, that is, quadratic approximation. We first show that the range of the function $w_2-w_2 ^{*}$ is exactly the closed interval $[0,1]$. Next, we estimate an upper bound of the exponent $w_2$ of continued fractions with low complexity partial quotients.
We establish a combinatorial realization of continued fractions as quotients of cardinalities of sets. These sets are sets of perfect matchings of certain graphs, the snake graphs, that appear naturally in the theory of cluster algebras. To a continued fraction $[a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n]$, we associate a snake graph $\mathcal{G}[a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n]$ such that the continued fraction is the quotient of the number of perfect matchings of $\mathcal{G}[a_1,a_2,\ldots,a_n]$ and $\mathcal{G}[a_2,\ldots,a_n]$. We also show that snake graphs are in bijection with continued fractions. We then apply this conn…
Let $\wh K$ be the field of formal Laurent series in $X^{-1}$ over the finite field $k$, and let $A$ be the ring of polynomials in $X$ over $k$. One of the main results of the paper is to give a particularly nice coding of the geodesic flow on the quotient of the Bruhat-Tits tree $\TT$ of ${\rm PGL}\_2(\wh K)$ by ${\rm PGL}\_2(A)$, by using the continued fraction expansion of the endpoints of the geodesic lines in $\TT$ (the space of ends of $\TT$ identifies with $\PP\_1(\wh K)$). This allows in particular to prove in a dynamical way the invariance of the Haar measure by the Artin map.