Mahler takes a regular view of Zaremba

Abstract

In the theory of continued fractions, Zaremba's conjecture states that there is a positive integer $M$ such that each integer is the denominator of a convergent of an ordinary continued fraction with partial quotients bounded by $M$. In this paper, to each such $M$ we associate a regular sequence---in the sense of Allouche and Shallit---and establish various properties and results concerning the generating function of the regular sequence. In particular, we determine the minimal algebraic relation concerning the generating function and its Mahler iterates.

12 pages, 2 figures