Simultaneous Convergent Continued Fraction Algorithm for Real and $p$-adic Fields with Applications to Quadratic Fields

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel algorithm for generating continued fraction expansions that converge simultaneously in real and p-adic fields, with applications to quadratic fields and rational numbers.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new convergent continued fraction algorithm applicable to both real and p-adic fields, especially for quadratic fields, with proven convergence properties and numerical experiments.

Findings

Finite continued fractions for rationals.

Convergence in both real and p-adic metrics.

Explicit bounds on approximation errors.

Abstract

Let $p$ be a prime number and $K$ be a field with embeddings into $\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathbb{Q}_p$. We propose an algorithm that generates continued fraction expansions converging in $\mathbb{Q}_p$ and is expected to simultaneously converge in both $\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathbb{Q}_p$. This algorithm produces finite continued fraction expansions for rational numbers. In the case of $p=2$ and if $K$ is a quadratic field, the continued fraction expansions generated by this algorithm converge in $\mathbb{R}$, and they are eventually periodic or finite. For an element $\alpha$ in $K$, let $p_n/q_n$ denote the $n$-th convergent. There exist constants $u_1$ and $u_2$ in ${\mathbb R}_{>0}$ with $u_1 + u_2 = 2$, and constants $C_1$ and $C_2$ in ${\mathbb R}_{>0}$ such that $|\alpha - p_n/q_n| < C_1/|q_n|^{u_1}$ and $|\alpha - p_n/q_n|_2 < C_2/|q_n|^{u_2}$. Here, $|\cdot|_2$ represents the $2$-adic distance. For prime numbers $p > 2$, we present numerical experiences.