Large deviations for denominators of continued fractions

Abstract

We give an exponential upper bound on the probabilitywith which the denominator of the $n$th convergent in the regular continued fraction expansion stays away from the mean $\frac{n\pi^2}{12\log2}$. The exponential rate is best possible, given by an analytic function related to the dimension spectrum of Lyapunov exponents for the Gauss transformation.