On the statistics of partial quotients of finite continued fractions (Q2486694)

Let \(p/q=[t_0;t_1,t_2,\dots,t_{s(p/q)}]\) be the continued fraction expansion of the rational number \(p/q\) (possible non-reduced) with partial quotients \(t_i\), where \(t_{s(p/q)}>1\) and \(s(p/q)\) is called the length of \(p/q\), and let \(X(R)\) be the set of all integer lattice points \((p,q)\) for which \(p^2+q^2\leq R^2\) and \(p>0,q>0\). Denote by \(H(R)\) the sum of lengths \(s(p/q)\) over \(p,q\in X(R)\) and by \(H_k(R)\) the sum of the number of \(i\), \(i=1,2,\dots,s(p/q)\), for which \(t_i=k\), again over \(X(R)\). Clearly, \(H(R)=\sum_{k=1}^\infty H_k(R)\). In this paper the author proves that \(H_k(R)/H(R)=p_k+O((\log R)^{-1})\) as \(R\to\infty\), where \(p_k=(\log 2)^{-1}\log(1+(k(k+2))^{-1})\) and the \(O\)-constant does not depend on \(k\), which is a positive solution of a conjecture of \textit{V. I. Arnol'd} [Arnold's problems. Translated and revised edition of the 2000 Russian original, Berlin: Springer (2004; Zbl 1051.00002)]. For the proof the author firstly expresses \(H(R)=N_1(R)\), \(H_k(R)=N_{1/k}(R)-N_{1/(k+1)}(R)\), where \(N_x(R)\) is the sum of \(s_x(p/q)\) over \(X(R)\) and \(s_x(p/q)\) is the number of \(i\), \(i=1,2,\dots,s(p/q)\), for which \([1;t_i,t_{i+1},\dots,t_{s(p/q)}]\leq x\). The main result of the paper states that \[ N_x(R)=(3/\pi)\log(1+x)R^2\log R+O(R^2) \] uniformly for \(x\in(0,1]\). In the proof the author uses known estimates of the classical Klooster\-man sum.