English

On the log-concavity of the Wright function

Classical Analysis and ODEs 2023-08-29 v2 Probability

Abstract

We investigate the log-concavity on the half-line of the Wright function ϕ(α,β,x),\phi(-\alpha,\beta,-x), in the probabilistic setting α(0,1)\alpha\in (0,1) and β0.\beta \ge 0. Applications are given to the construction of generalized entropies associated to the corresponding Mittag-Leffler function. A natural conjecture for the equivalence between the log-concavity of the Wright function and the existence of such generalized entropies is formulated. The problem is solved for βα\beta\geq\alpha and in the classical case β=1α\beta = 1-\alpha of the Mittag-Leffler distribution, which exhibits a certain critical parameter α=0.771667...\alpha_*= 0.771667... defined implicitly on the Gamma function and characterizing the log-concavity. We also prove that the probabilistic Wright functions are always unimodal, and that they are multiplicatively strongly unimodal if and only if βα\beta\geq\alpha or α1/2\alpha\le 1/2 and β=0.\beta = 0.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.07974,
  title  = {On the log-concavity of the Wright function},
  author = {Rui A. C. Ferreira and Thomas Simon},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.07974},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

To appear in Constructive Approximation

R2 v1 2026-06-28T07:37:07.246Z