Continued fractions, Cantor sets, Hausdorff dimension, and transfer operators and their analytic extension (Q432595)

This is a survey paper on the transfer operators of continued fractions and their applications to the Hausdorff dimension of Cantor sets arising in continued fractions and to the statistics of the Euclidean algorithm. The first section gives basic notions and properties of the Euclidean algorithm and continued fractions. The second section is devoted to the Gauss-Kuzmin Theorem which shows that the convergence speed of an arbitrary density under the iterations of the transfer operator of continued fractions to the Gauss density is determined by the second eigenvalue of the transfer operator. This second eigenvalue is called Wirsing constant. Wirsing's method [\textit{E. Wirsing}, Acta Arith. 24, 507--528 (1974; Zbl 0283.10032)] to calculate this value is described. Then in Section 3, the author explains how the transfer operators can be involved in calculating the Hausdorff dimension of Cantor sets in continued fractions. The Cantor set of numbers with partial quotients only in \(\{1,2\}\) is discussed. Section 4 focuses on the statistics of the Euclidean algorithm on integer pairs. The author outlines the proof of a result of \textit{V. Baladi} and \textit{B. Vallée} [J. Number Theory 110, No. 2, 331--386 (2005; Zbl 1114.11092)] asserting that the number of steps of Euclidean algorithm has an approximately Gaussian distribution. The proof uses some analytic extensions of transfer operators. The similarity to the classical proof of the prime number theorem is also discussed. In Section 5, the author shows how one can use the ergodicity of the measures obtained by transfer operators to study the approximation error in continued fractions. The last section is concerned with the Hurwitz complex continued fraction. A version of Gauss-Kuzmin theorem for the Hurwitz continued fraction is given. Finally, the author proposes some future researches on the Hurwitz continued fraction.