Solution formulas for linear difference equations with applications to continued fractions

Abstract

For any system of linear difference equations of arbitrary order, a family of solution formulas is constructed explicitly by way of relating the given system to simpler neighboring systems. These formulas are then used to investigate the asymptotic behavior of the solutions. When applying this difference equation method to second-order equations that belong to neighboring continued fractions, new results concerning convergence of continued fractions as well as meromorphic extension of analytic continued fractions beyond their convergence region are provided. This is demonstrated for analytic continued fractions whose elements tend to infinity. Finally, a recent result on the existence of limits of solutions to real difference equations having infinite order is extended to complex equations.