On Transfer Operators for Continued Fractions with Restricted Digits

For any non-empty subset I of the natural numbers, let _I denotethose numbers in the unit interval whose continued fractiondigits all lie in I. Define the corresponding transfer operator for , where Re (rß) = _I is the abscissa of convergence of the series . When acting on a certain Hilbert space H_I, rß, weshow that the operator L_I, rß is conjugate to an integraloperator K_I, rß. If furthermore rß is real,then K_I, rß is selfadjoint, so that L_I, rß: H_I, rß H_I, rß has purely real spectrum.It is proved that L_I, rß also has purely real spectrumwhen acting on various Hilbert or Banach spaces of holomorphicfunctions, on the nuclear space C [0, 1], and on the Fréchetspace C [0, 1]. The analytic properties of the map rß L_I, rßare investigated. For certain alphabets I of an arithmetic nature(for example, I = primes, I = squares, I an arithmetic progression,I the set of sums of two squares it is shown that rß L_I, rß admits an analytic continuation beyond thehalf-plane Re rß > _I. 2000 Mathematics SubjectClassification 37D35, 37D20, 30B70.