Patterns in rational base number systems (Q485129)

In the present paper the authors estimate the frequency of occurrences of patterns in rational base number systems. Their main tools involve self-similar tiles, Fourier transform and the estimation of exponential sums. Let \(a\) and \(b\) be coprime integers with \(a>b\geq1\). In a recent paper Akiyama, Frougny and Sakarovitch [\textit{Akiyama} et al., Isr. J. Math. 168, 53--91 (2008; Zbl 1214.11089)] considered number systems in the integers with base \(a/b\) and set of digits \(\mathcal{D}=\{0,1,\ldots,a-1\}\). Amongst other things they showed that every positive integer \(n\) has a unique and finite representation of the form \[ n=\frac1b\sum_{k=0}^{\ell(n)-1}\varepsilon_k(n)\left(\frac ab\right)^k, \quad\varepsilon_k(n)\in\mathcal{D}, \] with \(\varepsilon_{\ell(n)-1}\neq0\). The authors main result is an asymptotic formula for the number of occurrences of certain patterns in the sequence of digits \(\varepsilon_k(n)\). To this end let \(w=w_{\ell-1}\ldots w_0\), with \(w_i\in\mathcal{D}\), be a block of \(\ell\) digits and \[ S_w(N)=\sum_{k=0}^{\ell(N)-| w|}S_{k,w}(N), \] where \(| wrvert=\ell\) denotes the length of the word \(w\) and \[ S_{k,w}(N)=\#\{1\leq n\leq N: \ell(n)\geq k+| w|,\varepsilon_{k+| w|-1}(n)=w_{| w|-1},\ldots,\varepsilon_{k}(n)=w_0\}. \] Then the authors proved that \[ S_w(N)=\frac{N}{a^{| w|}}\log_{a/b}N+\mathcal{O}\left(N\log\log N\right). \] As consequences the authors prove a Delange type result (estimation of the first moment of the sum of digits function) and construct a Champernowne type normal number in the number system \(a/b\).