English

Can polylogarithms at algebraic points be linearly independent?

Number Theory 2023-01-11 v2

Abstract

Let r,mr,m be positive integers. Let 0x<10\le x <1 be a rational number. Let Φs(x,z)\Phi_s(x,z) be the ss-th Lerch function k=0zk+1(k+x+1)s\sum_{k=0}^{\infty}\tfrac{z^{k+1}}{(k+x+1)^s} with s=1,2,,rs=1,2,\ldots ,r. When x=0x=0, this is the polylogarithmic function. Let α1,,αm\alpha_1,\ldots ,\alpha_m be pairwise distinct algebraic numbers with 0<αj<10<|\alpha_j|<1 (1jm)(1 \le j \le m). In this article, we state a linear independence criterion over algebraic number fields of all the rm+1rm+1 numbers :: Φ1(x,α1),Φ2(x,α1),,Φr(x,α1),Φ1(x,α2),Φ2(x,α2),,Φr(x,α2),,Φ1(x,αm),Φ2(x,αm),,Φr(x,αm)\Phi_1(x,\alpha_1),\Phi_2(x,\alpha_1),\ldots, \Phi_r(x,\alpha_1),\Phi_1(x,\alpha_2),\Phi_2(x,\alpha_2),\ldots, \Phi_r(x,\alpha_2),\ldots,\Phi_1(x,\alpha_m),\Phi_2(x,\alpha_m),\ldots, \Phi_r(x,\alpha_m) and 11. This is the first result that gives a sufficient condition for the linear independence of values of the rr Lerch functions Φ1(x,z),Φ2(x,z),,Φr(x,z)\Phi_1(x,z),\Phi_2(x,z),\ldots, \Phi_r(x,z) at mm distinct algebraic points without any assumption for rr and mm, even for the case x=0x=0, the polylogarithms. We give an outline of our proof and explain basic idea.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.03811,
  title  = {Can polylogarithms at algebraic points be linearly independent?},
  author = {Sinnou David and Noriko Hirata-Kohno and Makoto Kawashima},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.03811},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Corrected typos

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:39:32.202Z