English

How can we escape Thomae's relations?

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2007-05-23 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

In 1879, Thomae discussed the relations between two generic hypergeometric 3F2_3F_2-series with argument 1. It is well-known since then that there are 120 such relations (including the trivial ones which come from permutations of the parameters of the hypergeometric series). More recently, Rhin and Viola asked the following question (in a different, but equivalent language of integrals): If there exists a linear dependence relation over Q\mathbf Q between two convergent 3F2_3F_2-series with argument 1, with integral parameters, and whose values are irrational numbers, is this relation a specialisation of one of the 120 Thomae relations? A few years later, Sato answered this question in the negative, by giving six examples of relations which cannot be explained by Thomae's relations. We show that Sato's counter-examples can be naturally embedded into two families of infinitely many 3F2_3F_2-relations, both parametrised by three independent parameters. Moreover, we find two more infinite families of the same nature. The families, which do not seem to have been recorded before, come from certain 3F2_3F_2-transformation formulae and contiguous relations. We also explain in detail the relationship between the integrals of Rhin and Viola and 3F2_3F_2-series.

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0502276,
  title  = {How can we escape Thomae's relations?},
  author = {Christian Krattenthaler and Tanguy Rivoal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0502276},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

AmS-LaTeX, 26 pages