On a Variant of Pillai's problem involving convergent denominators of quadratic irrationals

Let $(q_{α, n})_{n \geq 0}$ be the sequence of convergent denominators to the simple continued fraction expansion of $α$. For certain specific choices of $α$, this sequence is a Lehmer sequence. In this paper, we show that there are only finitely many integers $c$ such that the equation $q_{α, n} - q_{β, m} = c$ has at least two distinct solutions $(n,m)$, where $α,β$ are quadratic irrationals with $\mathbb{Q}(α)\neq \mathbb{Q}(β)$. In specific instances, we solve the equation $q_{α, n} - q_{β, m} = c$ completely and explicitly list all solutions.

Publication Details

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ArXiv.org
Published
2025-08-15
Primary Topic
Computational Physics and Python Applications
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article
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article

On a Variant of Pillai's problem involving convergent denominators of quadratic irrationals

ArXiv.org
Computational Physics and Python Applications
article

On a Variant of Pillai's problem involving convergent denominators of quadratic irrationals

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Abstract

Let $(q_{α, n})_{n \geq 0}$ be the sequence of convergent denominators to the simple continued fraction expansion of $α$. For certain specific choices of $α$, this sequence is a Lehmer sequence. In this paper, we show that there are only finitely many integers $c$ such that the equation $q_{α, n} - q_{β, m} = c$ has at least two distinct solutions $(n,m)$, where $α,β$ are quadratic irrationals with $\mathbb{Q}(α)\neq \mathbb{Q}(β)$. In specific instances, we solve the equation $q_{α, n} - q_{β, m} = c$ completely and explicitly list all solutions.

ArXiv.org
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Computational Physics and Python Applications
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On a Variant of Pillai's problem involving convergent denominators of quadratic irrationals · ArXiv.org (2025) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS