Orphans in forests of linear fractional transformations (Q726670)

Summary: A positive linear fractional transformation (PLFT) is a function of the form \(f(z)=\frac{az+b}{cz+d}\) where \(a\), \(b\), \(c\) and \(d\) are nonnegative integers with determinant \(ad-bc\neq 0\). \textit{M. B. Nathanson} [Am. Math. Mon. 122, No. 8, 790--792 (2015; Zbl 1358.20049)] generalized the notion of the Calkin-Wilf tree to PLFTs and used it to partition the set of PLFTs into an infinite forest of rooted trees. The roots of these PLFT Calkin-Wilf trees are called orphans. In this paper, we provide a combinatorial formula for the number of orphans with fixed determinant \(D\). In addition, we derive a method for determining the orphan ancestor of a given PLFT. Lastly, taking \(z\) to be a complex number, we show that every positive complex number has finitely many ancestors in the forest of complex \((u,v)\)-Calkin-Wilf trees.