Number Theory Commons^™

Convergence Of Random Walks On The Circle Generated By An Irrational Rotation, Francis E. Su

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Fix . Consider the random walk on the circle which proceeds by repeatedly rotating points forward or backward, with probability , by an angle . This paper analyzes the rate of convergence of this walk to the uniform distribution under ``discrepancy'' distance. The rate depends on the continued fraction properties of the number . We obtain bounds for rates when is any irrational, and a sharp rate when is a quadratic irrational. In that case the discrepancy falls as (up to constant factors), where is the number of steps in the walk. This is the first example of a sharp …