English

Variations on a Hypergeometric Theme

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2018-12-17 v3 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

The question was asked: Is it possible to express the function \begin{equation} \tag{1.1} h(a)\equiv\,{_4F_3}(a,a,a,a;2a,a+1,a+1;1) \label{question} \end{equation} in closed form? After considerable analysis, the answer appears to be "no", but during the attempt to answer this question, a number of interesting (and unexpected) related results were obtained, either as specialized transformations, or as closed-form expressions for several related functions. The purpose of this paper is to record and review both the methods attempted and the related identities obtained (specifically new 4F3(1)_4F_3(1), 5F6(1)_5F_6(1) and (generalized Euler) sums containing digamma functions) - the former for their educational merit, since they appear to be not-very-well-known, the latter because they do not appear to exist in the literature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1803.03135,
  title  = {Variations on a Hypergeometric Theme},
  author = {Michael Milgram},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.03135},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

In this (second) revision, Appendix C is corrected. This paper has been accepted for publication in the (Open Access) Journal of Classical Analysis

R2 v1 2026-06-23T00:46:39.262Z