Diophantine properties of measures invariant with respect to the Gauss map

Motivated by the work of D. Y. Kleinbock, E. Lindenstrauss, G. A. Margulis, and B. Weiss [8, 9], we explore the Diophantine properties of probability measures invariant under the Gauss map. Specifically, we prove that every such measure which has finite Lyapunov exponent is extremal, i.e., gives zero measure to the set of very well approximable numbers. We show, on the other hand, that there exist examples where the Lyapunov exponent is infinite and the invariant measure is not extremal. Finally, we construct a family of Ahlfors regular measures and prove a Khinchine-type theorem for these measures. The series whose convergence or divergence is used to determine whether or not µ-almost every point is ψ-approximable is different from the series used for Lebesgue measure, so this theorem answers in the negative a question posed by Kleinbock, Lindenstrauss, and Weiss [8].