Semi-regular continued fractions and an exact formula for the moments of the Minkowski question mark function (Q638609): Difference between revisions

The article continues a series of articles by the author on the Minkowski question mark function, see references [Lith. Math. J. 48, No. 4, 357--367 (2008; Zbl 1222.11114), Involve 2, No. 2, 121--159 (2009; Zbl 1170.11028), Math. Comput. 79, No. 269, 383--418 (2010; Zbl 1216.11006), and Glasg. Math. J. 52, No. 1, 41--64 (2010; Zbl 1229.11016)] of the article under review. The article starts with a short introduction. The \(?\)-function is defined as \[ ?(x) = 2^{1-a_1} - 2^{1-(a_1+a_2)} + 2^{1-(a_1+a_2+a_3)} - \ldots \] for all \(x \in [0,1]\) with continued fraction expansion \(x = [0;a_1,a_2,a_3,\ldots]\). It is a continuous, strictly increasing bijection of \([0, 1]\), it is singular, i.e.\ \(?^{\prime}(x) = 0\) almost everywhere with respect to the Lebesgue measure, and it satisfies the functional equations \[ ?(x) = 1- ?(1-x) \quad \text{and} \quad ?(x) = 2\,?\left( \frac{x}{x+1}\right) \] for all \(x \in [0, 1]\). Then the author considers the moments \(m_L\) of the question mark function: For \(L \in \mathbb{N}\) the \(L\)-th moment is defined by \[ m_L = \int_0^1 x^L \, d?(x). \] He continues to give an exact formula for the moments \(m_L\), which is is the main result of the article. He proves the following Theorem. For an integer \(L \geq 1\), the moments of the Minkowski question mark function can be expressed by the following exact formula: \[ m_L(x)= \frac{1}{(L-1)!} \sum_{l=0}^\infty \int_{[0,\infty)^{l+1}} \, x_0^L \cdot \frac{ (x_0 x_l)^{-\frac{1}{2}} \prod_{i=0}^{l-1} I_1(2\sqrt{x_i x_{i+1}}}{\prod_{i=0}^l e^{x_i}(2e^{x_i}-1)} \, dx_0 \cdots d x_l. \] Here \(I_1(x) = -i\,J_1 (ix)\) denotes the Bessel \(I\)-function. The \(l\)-th term of this series is of magnitude \(\ll 2^{-l}\). By convention, an empty product is assumed to be 1.