About statistics of periods of continued fractions of quadratic irrationalities (Q611964)

Given a random point \((p,q)\in\mathbb{Z}^2\) in the disk of radius \(R\) (subject to the condition \(p^2+4q>0\)), the continued fraction expansion of the larger root of \(x^2+px=q\) is periodic; let \(a(p,q)=(a_1,\ldots,a_{T(p,q)})\) be the period. The author proves two theorems -- originating from conjectures by Arnold -- on the asymptotic value, for \(R\to\infty\), of the expectation of certain events related to the tuples \(a(p,q)\). In Theorem 1, given a fixed number \(k\), the author determines the asymptotic value of the expectation of the event \(a_i=k\), where \(a_i\) is chosen in accordance with a certain weighting procedure. In Theorem 2 he gives an upper bound on the mean value of \(a_i\). Both statements are rather technical, see the paper for their precise formulation.