Orphans in Forests of Linear Fractional Transformations

Abstract

A positive linear fractional transformation (PLFT) is a function of the form $f(z)=\frac{az+b}{cz+d}$ where $a,b,c$ and $d$ are nonnegative integers with determinant $ad-bc\neq 0$. Nathanson generalized the notion of the Calkin-Wilf tree to PLFTs and used it to partition the set of PLFTs into an infinite forest of rooted trees. The roots of these PLFT Calkin-Wilf trees are called orphans. In this paper, we provide a combinatorial formula for the number of orphans with fixed determinant $D$. In addition, we derive a method for determining the orphan ancestor of a given PLFT. Lastly, taking $z$ to be a complex number, we show that every positive complex number has finitely many ancestors in the forest of complex $(u,v)$-Calkin-Wilf trees.