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Continued fractions and Hankel determinants from hyperelliptic curves

Following van der Poorten, we consider a family of nonlinear maps which are generated from the continued fraction expansion of a function on a hyperelliptic curve of genus $\mathrm{g}$. Using the connection with the classical theory of J-fractions and orthogonal polynomials, we show that in the simplest case $\mathrm{g}=1$ this provides a straightforward derivation of Hankel determinant formulae for the terms of a general Somos-4 sequence, which were found in a particular form by Chang, Hu and Xin, We extend these formulae to the higher genus case, and prove that generic Hankel determinants in genus two satisfy a Somos-8 relation. Moreover, for all $\mathrm{g}$ we show that the iteration for the continued fraction expansion is equivalent to a discrete Lax pair with a natural Poisson structure, and the associated nonlinear map is a discrete integrable system. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Jon Nimmo.