On the structure of the dimension spectrum for continued fraction expansions

Abstract

We analyse the dimension spectrum of continued fractions expansions with coefficients restricted to infinite subsets of $ \mathbb{N}$. We prove that the set of powers $P_q=\{q^n\colon n\in \mathbb{N}\}$ has full dimension spectrum for each integer $q\geq 2$, answering a question by Chousionis, Leykekhman and Urbański. On the other hand, we show that the dimension spectrum for $P^*_q=\{q^n\colon n\in \mathbb{N}\}\cup\{1\}$ has many gaps and regions where it is nowhere dense. We also investigate the case where $A$ is generated by a monomial, $M_q=\{n^q\colon n\in\mathbb{N}\}$. For $M_q$ we prove that the dimension spectrum is full for $q\in\{1,2,3,4,5\}$, and it has a gap for each $q\geq 6$. Furthermore we show for $q\in\{6,7,8\}$ that the dimension spectrum of $M_q$ is the disjoint union of two nontrivial closed intervals, and it is the disjoint union of three nontrivial closed intervals for $q \in\{9,10\}$. For $q\geq 11$ we show that the dimension spectrum of $M_q$ consists of finitely many disjoint nontrivial closed intervals. The results concerning $M_q$ extend existing results for $q=1$ and $q=2$. In our analysis we employ Perron-Frobenius (transfer) operators, and numerical tools developed by Falk and Nussbaum that give rigorous estimates for the Hausdorff dimension for continued fractions expansions.