English

Euler's factorial series, Hardy integral, and continued fractions

Number Theory 2022-06-14 v2

Abstract

We study pp-adic Euler's series Ep(t)=k=0k!tkE_p(t) = \sum_{k=0}^{\infty}k!t^k at a point pap^a, aZ1a \in \mathbb{Z}_{\ge 1}, and use Pad\'e approximations to prove a lower bound for the pp-adic absolute value of the expression cEp(±pa)dcE_p\left(\pm p^a\right)-d, where c,dZc, d \in \mathbb{Z}. It is interesting that the same Pad\'e polynomials which pp-adically converge to Ep(t)E_p(t), approach the Hardy integral H(t)=0es1tsds\mathcal{H}(t) = \int_{0}^{\infty} \frac{e^{-s}}{1-ts}ds on the Archimedean side. This connection is used with a trick of analytic continuation when deducing an Archimedean bound for the numerator Pad\'e polynomial needed in the derivation of the lower bound for cEp(±pa)dp|cE_p\left(\pm p^a\right)-d|_p. Furthermore, we present an interconnection between E(t)E(t) and H(t)\mathcal{H}(t) via continued fractions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2111.13649,
  title  = {Euler's factorial series, Hardy integral, and continued fractions},
  author = {Anne-Maria Ernvall-Hytönen and Tapani Matala-Aho and Louna Seppälä},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.13649},
  year   = {2022}
}