A nonlinear version of the Newhouse thickness theorem

Abstract: Let $C_1$ and $C_2$ be two Cantor sets with convex hull $[0,1]$. Newhouse proved if $\tau(C_1)\cdot \tau(C_2)\geq 1$, then the arithmetic sum $C_1+C_2$ is an interval, where $\tau(C_i), 1\leq i\leq 2$ denotes the thickness of $C_i$. In this paper, we generalize this thickness theorem as follows. Let $K_i\subset \mathbb{R}, i=1,\cdots, d$, be some Cantor sets (perfect and nowhere dense) with convex hull $[0,1]$. Suppose $f(x_1,\cdots, x_{d-1},z)\in \mathcal{C}^1$ is a continuous function defined on $\mathbb{R}^d$. Denote the continuous image of $f$ by $$f(K_1,\cdots, K_d)={f(x_1, \cdots x_{d-1},z):x_i\in K_i,z\in K_d, 1\leq i\leq d-1}.$$ If for any $(x_1, \cdots, x_{d-1},z)\in [0,1]^d$, we have $$(\tau(K_i))^{-1}\leq \left|\dfrac{\partial_{x_i} f}{\partial_z f}\right|\leq \tau(K_d),1\leq i\leq d-1$$ then $f(K_1,\cdots, K_d)$ is a closed interval. We give two applications. Firstly, we partially answer some questions posed by Takahashi. Secondly, we obtain various nonlinear identities, associated with the continued fractions with restricted partial quotients, which can represent real numbers.