Large and moderate deviation principles for Engel continued fractions (Q1745269)

Let \(x\) be a given real number. The most well-known representation of real numbers is continued fractions. Most of the continued fraction expansions have invariant and ergodic measures which are absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. The classical studies for continued fractions mainly focus on the distribution law, the law of large numbers, the central limit theorem and the law of the iterated logarithm for the digit sequence occurring in these expansions. The classical limit theorems say little or nothing about the rate of convergence. One way to address this is the theory of large deviations in modern probability theory. Let \((\Omega, \mathcal{F},\mathbf{ P})\) be a probability space, where \(\Omega=(0,1]\), \(\mathcal{F}\) is the Borel \(\sigma\)-algebra on \((0,1]\) and \(\mathbf{P}\) denotes the Lebesgue measure on \((0,1]\). Let \(\mathit{T}_{E}: (0,1] \to (0,1] \) be the Engel continued fraction (ECF) map given by \[ T_E x=\frac{1}{\big[\tfrac{1}{x}\big]} \Big(\frac{1}{x}-\Big[ \frac{1}{x}\Big] \Big), \] Then every real number \(x \in (0,1]\) can be uniquely written as \[ x=\cfrac{1}{b_1(x)+\cfrac{b_1(x)}{b_2(x)+\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{0}{}{\ddots \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{0}{}{+\cfrac{b_{n-1}(x)}{b_n(x)+\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{0}{}{\ddots}}}}}}=[[b_1(x),b_2(x),\dots, b_n(x),\dots]], \] where \(b_1(x)= [1/x] \in \mathbb{N}\) and \(b_{n+1}(x) = b_1 (T_E^n x) \) with \(b_{n+1} (x)\geq b_n (x) \) for all \( n \geq 1\). This representation is said to be the ECF expansion of \(x \in \mathbb{N}\). The following two theorems are the main results of the article. Theorem 1. Let \( \{b_n : n \geq 1\}\) be the partial quotient sequence of the ECF expansion. Then \(\Big\{\frac{\log b_n -n}{n}: n \geq 1\Big\} \) satisfies a large deviation principle with speed \(n\) and good rate function \[ I(x)= \begin{cases} x-\log (x+1), & \text{if} \; x > -\frac{\sqrt{5}-1}{2}; \\ -\frac{\sqrt{5}+1}{2}(x+1)+2 \log\frac{\sqrt{5}+1}{2}, & \text{if} \; -1\leq x \leq -\frac{\sqrt{5}-1}{2}; \\ +\infty, & \text{otherwise}. \end{cases} \] Theorem 2. Let \(\{b_n: n \geq 1 \}\) be the partial quotient sequence of the ECF expansion and \(\{a_n: n\geq 1\}\) be a positive sequence satisfying \[ a_n \to \infty, \quad \frac{a_n}{\sqrt{n \log n}} \to \infty \quad \text{and} \quad \frac{a_n}{n} \to 0. \] Then \(\Big\{\frac{\log b_n-n}{a_n} : n \geq 1 \Big\} \) satisfies an moderate deviation principle with speed \(n^{-1} a^2_n\) and good rate function \(J(x)=x^2/2\) for any \(x \in \mathbb{R}\).