On the periodicity of continued fractions in elliptic fields (Q2411791)

Let \(h\in {\mathbb Q}[x]\) be a polynomial of degree one. The authors consider the question on the finiteness of the number of square-free polynomials \(f\in{\mathbb Q}[h]\) of fixed degree such that \(\sqrt{f}\) has a periodic continued fraction expansion in the field of formal power series \({\mathbb Q}((h))\) and such that the fields \({\mathbb Q}(h)(\sqrt{f})\) are not isomorphic to one another and to fields of the form \({\mathbb Q}(h)(\sqrt{ch^n+1})\), where \(c\in {\mathbb Q}^*\) and \(n\in{\mathbb N}\). In this paper, it is given a positive answer in the case of elliptic fields \({\mathbb Q}(h)(\sqrt{f})\) and \(\deg f=3\). The main result (Theorem 2) is the following. Consider \(f\in {\mathbb Q}[h]\) a square-free polynomial of degree three such that \(f(0)\) is a complete square in \({\mathbb Q}^*\). Then the nontrivial nonequivalent examples of polynomials \(f\) for which \(\sqrt{f}\) has a periodic continued fraction expansion are exhausted by \(f=12h^2-8h^2+4h+1\), \(f=12h^3-5h^2+2h+1\) and \(f=-120h^3+25h^2+2h+1\).