Periodicity and Period-Length Bounds for Browkin $p$-Adic Continued Fractions

Source abstract

Continued fractions have been introduced and studied in the field of $p$--adic numbers by several authors, with the aim of developing analogues of the classical theory of real continued fractions. In this paper, we focus on Browkin's continued fraction algorithm, for which several fundamental questions remain open, especially concerning periodic expansions of quadratic irrationals. In this paper, we solve a conjecture about periodicity left open in [6]. As a consequence, we prove that, for every positive integer $t$, there exist infinitely many square roots of integers whose Browkin continued fraction expansion is periodic with period length $2t$. This also settles a problem originating from previous classical results on the possible period lengths of square roots of integers. Moreover, we provide new sufficient conditions for the periodicity of quadratic irrationals and derive explicit bounds for the corresponding period lengths. These results also restrict the possible behaviour of a quadratic irrational whose Browkin continued fraction expansion is non-periodic, and therefore provide new tools for investigating whether an analogue of Lagrange's theorem can hold. Finally, we also provide a computational study of the Browkin expansions of quadratic irrationals, with particular attention to the behaviour of square roots of integers and to the search for possible non-periodic examples.