Generalized continued fraction expansions of complex numbers, and applications to quadratic and badly approximable numbers

Abstract: We study the generalized continued fraction expansions of complex numbers in term of elements from Euclidean subrings, especially Gaussian or Eisenstein integers, in a general framework as pursued in [3] and [1]. We introduce a common approach to studying the continued fraction expansions of zeroes of binary forms, via consideration of the action of the general linear group, and apply it to discuss expansions of quadratic surds on the one hand and of badly approximable numbers on the other hand. Also, we generalize the property of the simple continued fraction expansions that the convergents are the "best approximants", to a large class of continued fraction expansions of complex numbers.