Lochs-type theorems beyond positive entropy

Lochs’ theorem and its generalizations are conversion theorems that relate the number of digits determined in one expansion of a real number as a function of the number of digits given in some other expansion. In its original version, Lochs’ theorem related decimal expansions with continued fraction expansions. Such conversion results can also be stated for sequences of interval partitions under suitable assumptions, with results holding almost everywhere, or in measure, involving the entropy. This is the viewpoint we develop here. In order to deal with sequences of partitions beyond positive entropy, this paper introduces the notion of log-balanced sequences of partitions, together with their weight functions. These are sequences of interval partitions such that the logarithms of the measures of their intervals at each depth are roughly the same. We then state Lochs-type theorems which work even in the case of zero entropy, in particular for several important log-balanced sequences of partitions of a number-theoretic nature.