Statistics of the solutions of the integer-valued equation \(ax-by=\pm 1\) (Q923604)

Let \(0<\alpha_ 1<\beta_ 1<\alpha_ 2<\beta_ 2<1\) be any fixed real numbers and put \({\mathcal N}^{(i)}=\{1\leq n\leq N |\alpha_ iN<n<\beta_ iN\}\), \(i=1,2\). Let \(S_ N\) denote the set of all fractions a/b where \(a\in {\mathcal N}^{(1)}\) and \(b\in {\mathcal N}^{(2)}\) are prime to each other. If \(a/b\in S_ N\) (where \(a\in {\mathcal N}^{(1)}\), \(b\in {\mathcal N}^{(2)})\) we can consider the integer solutions of the equation \[ (*)\quad | ax-by| =1. \] If \([k_ 0,k_ 1,...,k_ s]\) is the continued-fraction expansion of a/b, then a particular solution of (*) is given by \(x_ 0=q_{s-1}\), \(y_ 0=p_{s-1}\), where \(p_{s-1}/q_{s-1}=[k_ 0,k_ 1,...,k_{s-1}]\). Put \(R_ N=\{\frac{q_{s-1}}{q_ s}| a/b=[k_ 0,k_ 1,...,k_ s]\in S_ N\}\) (here, \(a\in {\mathcal N}^{(1)}\), \(b\in {\mathcal N}^{(2)}\), \(p_ s/q_ s=[k_ 0,k_ 1,...,k_ s]\) and \(p_{s-1}/q_{s-1}=[k_ 0,k_ 1,...,k_{s-1}])\). Let \(\mu_ N\) denote the measure on the Borelian subsets \({\mathcal B}\) of [0,1] which is generated by the uniform distribution on \(R_ N\). The authors show that \(\mu_ N\) converges to the uniform distribution on \({\mathcal B}\) (as \(N\to \infty)\) in the following sense: For every \(\epsilon >0\) and \(\delta >0\) and any interval \(\Delta\subset [0,1]\) of length \(\lambda (\Delta)>\delta\) there exists a number \(N_ 0(\epsilon,\delta)\) such that \[ | \frac{\mu_ N(\Delta)}{\lambda (\Delta)}-1| <\epsilon \text{ for all } N>N_ 0(\epsilon,\delta). \] This result is proved by constructing a special flow (this involves the Gaussian transformation) and showing that it has certain mixing properties.