Abstract
In this paper, first derivatives of the Whittaker function are calculated with respect to the parameters. Using the confluent hypergeometric function, these derivarives can be expressed as infinite sums of quotients of the digamma and gamma functions. Moreover, from the integral representation of it is possible to obtain these parameter derivatives in terms of finite and infinite integrals with integrands containing elementary functions (products of algebraic, exponential, and logarithmic functions). These infinite sums and integrals can be expressed in closed form for particular values of the parameters. For this purpose, we have obtained the parameter derivative of the incomplete gamma function in closed form. As an application, reduction formulas for parameter derivatives of the confluent hypergeometric function are derived, along with finite and infinite integrals containing products of algebraic, exponential, logarithmic, and Bessel functions. Finally, reduction formulas for the Whittaker functions and integral Whittaker functions and are calculated.
Keywords:
derivatives with respect to parameters; Whittaker functions; integral Whittaker functions; incomplete gamma functions; sums of infinite series of psi and gamma; finite and infinite logarithmic integrals and Bessel functions MSC:
33B15; 33B20; 33C10; 33C15; 33C20; 33C50; 33E20
1. Introduction
Introduced in 1903 by Whittaker [1], the and functions are defined as follows:
and
respectively, where denotes the gamma function and . These functions, called Whittaker functions, are closely associated with the following confluent hypergeometric function (Kummer function):
where denotes the generalized hypergeometric function.
For particular values of the parameters and , the Whittaker functions can be reduced to a variety of elementary and special functions. Whittaker [1] discussed the connection between the functions defined in (1) and (2) and many other special functions, such as the modified Bessel function, the incomplete gamma functions, the parabolic cylinder function, the error functions, the logarithmic and the cosine integrals, and the generalized Hermite and Laguerre polynomials. Monographs and treatises dealing with special functions [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] present properties of the Whittaker functions with more or less extension.
The Whittaker functions are frequently applied in various areas of mathematical physics (see for example [11,12,13]), such as the well-known solution of the Schrödinger equation for the harmonic oscillator [14].
and are usually treated as functions of variable x with fixed values of the parameters and . However, there are other investigations which consider and as variables. For instance, Laurenzi [15] discussed methods to calculate derivatives of and with respect to when this parameter is an integer. Using the Mellin transform, Buschman [16] showed that the derivatives of the Whittaker functions with respect to the parameters for certain particular values of these parameters can be expressed in finite sums of Whittaker functions. López and Sesma [17] considered the behaviour of as a function of . They derived a convergent expansion in ascending powers of and an asymptotic expansion in descending powers of . Using series of Bessel functions and Buchholz polynomials, Abad and Sesma [18] presented an algorithm for the calculation of the nth derivative of the Whittaker functions with respect to the parameter. Becker [19] investigated certain integrals with respect to the parameter. Ancarini and Gasaneo [20] presented a general case of differentiation of generalized hypergeometric functions with respect to the parameters in terms of infinite series containing the digamma function. In addition, Sofostasios and Brychkov [21] considered derivatives of hypergeometric functions and classical polynomials with respect to the parameters.
The primary focus of this research is a systematic investigation of the first derivatives of with respect to the parameters. We primarily base our findings on two distinct methods. The first pertains to the series representation of , whereas the second pertains to the integral representations of . Regarding the first approach, direct differentiation of (1) with respect to the parameters leads to infinite sums of quotients of digamma and gamma functions. It is possible to calculate such sums in closed form for particular values of the parameters. The parameter differentiation of the integral representations of leads to finite and infinite integrals of elementary functions, such as products of algebraic, exponential, and logarithmic functions. These integrals are similar to those investigated by Kölbig [22] and Geddes et al. [23]. As in the case of the first approach, it is possible to calculate such integrals in closed form for some particular values of the parameters.
In the Appendices, we calculate the first derivative of the incomplete gamma functions and with respect to the parameter . These results are used when we calculate several of the integrals found in the second approach mentioned above. In addition, we calculate new reduction formulas of the integral Whittaker functions which we recently introduced in [24]. These are defined in a similar way as other integral functions in the mathematical literature:
Finally, we include a list of reduction formulas for the Whittaker function in the Appendices.
2. Parameter Differentiation of via Kummer Function
As mentioned above, the Whittaker function is closely related to the confluent hypergeometric function . Likewise, the parameter derivatives of are related to the parameter derivatives of . Below, we introduce the following notation set by Ancarini and Gasaneo [20].
Definition 1.
Define the parameter derivatives of the confluent hypergeometric function as
and
According to (3), we have
Additionally, according to [25], we have
and
Because one of the integral representations of the confluent hypergeometric function is ([6], Section 6.5.1)
by direct differentiation of (10) with respect to parameters a and b we obtain
and
Because our main focus is the systematic investigation of the parameter derivatives of , we present these parameter derivatives as Theorems throughout the paper and the corresponding results for and as Corollaries. Additionally, note that all the results regarding can be transformed according to the next Theorem.
Theorem 1.
The following transformation holds true:
Proof.
Differentiate Kummer’s transformation formula ([8], Equation 13.2.39) with respect to a:
to obtain the desired result. □
2.1. Derivative with Respect to the First Parameter
Using (1) and (3), the first derivative of with respect to the first parameter is
where denotes the digamma function and
Theorem 2.
For and for , , the following parameter derivative formula of holds true:
Proof.
For , Equation (11) becomes
Corollary 1.
For , , and for , the following reduction formula holds true:
Proof.
Corollary 2.
For , and for , the following sum holds true:
where denotes the lower incomplete gamma function (A1).
Proof.
Table 1 presents explicit expressions for particular values of (13) and , obtained with the help of the MATHEMATICA program. Note that the and functions are defined in (61) and (62), respectively.
Table 1.
Derivative of with respect to using (13).
Next, we present other reduction formula of from the result found in [15] for :
where denotes the exponential integral, and for
and
In order to calculate the finite sum provided in (20), we derive the following Lemma.
Lemma 1.
The following finite sum holds true
Proof.
Split the sum in two as
where
and
Take , , and in the quadratic transformation ([8], Equation 15.18.3)
to obtain
Now, apply Gauss’s summation theorem ([8], Equation 15.4.20)
and the formula ([7], Equation 43:4:3)
to arrive at
Therefore, is a pure imaginary number. Because is a real number, we conclude that , as we wanted to prove. □
Theorem 3.
The following reduction formula holds true for and :
where denotes the Laguerre polynomials (A14) and the n-th harmonic number.
Proof.
Additionally, according to ([8], Equation 13.18.1),
By performing the transformations , and in (A13), we obtain
Finally, we have the following for ([27], Equation 1.3.7):
Corollary 3.
The following reduction formula holds true for and ,
In Table 2, we collect particular cases of (22) for obtained with the help of the MATHEMATICA program.
Table 2.
Derivative of with respect to using (22).
2.2. Derivative with Respect to the Second Parameter
Using (1) and (3), the first derivative of with respect to the parameter is
where is provided in (12) and the series is
Theorem 4.
For and , the following parameter derivative formula of holds true:
Proof.
Thus, using (14),
Corollary 4.
For , , and , the following reduction formula holds true:
Proof.
Using (29), the derivative of with respect can be calculated for particular values of and with ; as obtained with the help of MATHEMATICA, these are presented in Table 3.
Table 3.
Derivative of with respect to using (29).
Note that for , we obtain an indeterminate expression in (29). For this case, we present the following result.
Theorem 5.
The following parameter derivative formula of holds true for :
where denotes the modified Bessel function.
Proof.
Differentiating with respect to the expression ([8], Equation 13.18.8)
we obtain (33), as we wanted to prove. □
The order derivative of the modified Bessel function is provided in terms of the Meijer-G function and the generalized hypergeometric function [28]:
where is the modified Bessel function of the second kind, or in terms of generalized hypergeometric functions, only , [29]:
There are different expressions for the order derivatives of the Bessel functions [30,31]. This subject is summarized in [32], where more general results are presented in terms of convolution integrals, while order derivatives of Bessel functions are found for particular values of the order.
Using (33), (35), and (36), derivatives of with respect to can be calculated for ; these are presented in Table 4 as obtained with the help of MATHEMATICA.
Table 4.
Derivative of with respect to using (33).
3. Parameter Differentiation of via Integral Representations
3.1. Derivative with Respect to the First Parameter
Integral representations of can be obtained via integral representations of confluent hypergeometric functions ([6], Section 7.4.1); thus,
where
denotes the beta function. In order to calculate the first derivative of with respect to parameter , we introduce the following finite logarithmic integrals.
Definition 2.
Note that from (42) and (43) we have
Likewise, we can depart from other integral respresentations of ([6], Section 7.4.1) (note that there are several typos in this reference regarding these integral representations) to obtain
and consequently, we have
where we have defined the following logarithmic integrals.
Definition 3.
Note that from (47) and (48), we have
Because , , and are reduced to the calculation of , we next calculate the latter integral.
Theorem 6.
The following integral holds true for :
Proof.
Corollary 5.
For , Equation (52) is reduced to
Theorem 7.
For and , with , the following integral holds true for :
where
and the functions and denote the hyperbolic sine and cosine integrals.
Proof.
From the definition of provided in (40), we have
We can change the variables in the first integral above to arrive at
where we have set
Taking into account the binomial theorem and the integral (A9) calculated in Appendix A, i.e.,
we can calculate
Now, we can apply the differentiation formula ([8], Equation 16.3.1)
to obtain
According to ([9], Equation 7.12.2(67)), we have
In order to obtain similar expressions to those obtained in Table 1, we can derive an alternative form of (60). Indeed, from the definition of the hyperbolic sine and cosine integrals ([8], Equations 6.2.15–6.2.16), ,
it is easy to prove that
Additionally, from the definition of a complementary exponential integral ([8], Equation 6.2.3)
and the property ([8], Equation 6.2.7)
it is easy to prove that
thus, taking into account (63) and (64), we have
Similarly, we can calculate
Table 5 shows the integral for and particular values of the parameters and/or obtained from (52) and (54) with the aid of MATHEMATICA program.
Table 5.
Integral for particular values of and .
Theorem 8.
For and , with , the following reduction formula holds true for :
where we have set the polynomials:
Proof.
According to the definition of (1), we have
Applying the property ([7], Equation 18:5:1)
and the reduction formula ([9], Equation 7.11.1(12))
where and , after some algebra we arrive at
In addition to (68), other reduction formulas for the Whittaker function are presented in Appendix C. A large list of reduction formulas for is available in [24] and in other monographs dealing with the special functions [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,26].
Theorem 9.
For and , with , the following reduction formula holds true for :
Proof.
According to (42), we have
Corollary 6.
For and , with , the following reduction formula holds true for :
Table 6 shows the first derivative of with respect to the parameter for particular values of and and for , which are calculated from (72) and are not contained in Table 1.
Table 6.
Derivative of with respect to using (72).
3.2. Application to the Calculation of Infinite Integrals
Additional integral representations of the Whittaker function in terms of Bessel functions ([6], Section 6.5.1) are known:
Let us next introduce the following infinite logarithmic integrals.
Definition 4.
Corollary 7.
For and , with , the following infinite integrals holds true for :
and
3.3. Derivative with Respect to the Second Parameter
In order to calculate the first derivative of with respect to parameter , we introduce the following finite logarithmic integrals.
Definition 5.
From (88)–(91), we obtain the following interrelationships:
Because , , and are reduced to the calculation of , we next calculate the latter integral.
Proof.
Theorem 11.
For and , with , the following integral holds true for :
Proof.
From the definition of provided in (84), we have
Theorem 12.
For and , with , the following reduction formula holds true for :
Table 7 shows the first derivative of with respect to the parameter for particular values of and and for , which are calculated from (95) and are not contained in Table 3 and Table 4.
Table 7.
Derivative of with respect to using (95).
Corollary 8.
For and , with , the following reduction formula holds true for :
3.4. Application to the Calculation of Finite Integrals
Proof.
Proof.
Table 8 shows the integral for particular values of the parameters and and for obtained from (92), (93), and (97) with the aid of the MATHEMATICA program.
Table 8.
Integral for particular values of and .
4. Conclusions
The Whittaker function is defined in terms of the Kummer confluent hypergeometric function; hence, its derivative with respect to the parameters and can be expressed as infinite sums of quotients of the digamma and gamma functions. In addition, parameter differentiation of the integral representations of leads to finite and infinite integrals of elementary functions. These sums and integrals have been calculated for particular values of the parameters and in closed form. As an application of these results, we have obtained several reduction formulas for the derivatives of the confluent Kummer function with respect to the parameters, i.e., and . Additionally, we have calculated finite integrals containing a combination of the exponential, logarithmic, and algebraic functions, as well as several infinite integrals involving the exponential, logarithmic, algebraic, and Bessel functions. It is worth noting that all the results presented in this paper have been checked both numerically and symbolically with the MATHEMATICA program.
In Appendix A, we obtain the first derivative of the incomplete gamma functions in closed form. These results allow us to calculate a finite logarithmic integral, which is used to calculate one of the integrals appearing in the body of the paper.
In Appendix B, we calculate new reduction formulas for the integral Whittaker functions and from two reduction formulas of the Whittaker function . One of the latter seems to have not been previously reported in the literature.
Finally, in Appendix C, we collect a number of reduction formulas for the Whittaker function .
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, A.A. and J.L.G.-S.; Methodology, A.A. and J.L.G.-S.; Resources, A.A.; Writing—original draft, A.A. and J.L.G.-S.; Writing—review and editing, A.A. and J.L.G.-S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement
Not applicable.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Francesco Mainardi from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, for his kind encouragement and interest in our work.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Appendix A. Parameter Differentiation of the Incomplete Gamma Functions
Definition A1.
The lower incomplete gamma function is defined as follows [7]:
Definition A2.
The upper incomplete gamma function is defined as follows ([7], Equation 45:3:2)
The relation between both functions is
The lower incomplete gamma function has the following series expansion ([7], Equation 45:6:1):
In addition, the following integral representations in terms of infinite integrals hold true ([8], Equations 8.6.3 and 8.6.7) for :
From (A1), the derivative of the lower incomplete gamma function with respect to the order has the following integral representation:
Theorem A1.
The parameter derivative of the lower incomplete gamma function is
Proof.
According to (A1) and (A4), the derivative of the lower incomplete gamma function with respect to the parameter is
Now, we apply the sum formula ([26], Equation 6.2.1(63))
to arrive at (A6), as we wanted to prove. □
Theorem A2.
The parameter derivative of the upper incomplete gamma function is
Corollary A2.
The following integral holds true for :
Proof.
Perform the change of variables in the integral provided in (A8), split the result in two integrals, and apply the change of variables again to the first integral:
Corollary A3.
According to the notation provided in (7), the following reduction formula holds true for :
Appendix B. Reduction Formulas for Integral Whittaker Functions Miκ,μ and miκ,μ
In [24], we found reduction formulas for the integral Whittaker function . Next, we derive new reduction formulas for and from reduction formulas of the Whittaker function .
Theorem A3.
The following reduction formula holds true for , and :
where denotes the lower incomplete gamma function.
Proof.
Next, we can apply to the definition of the Whittaker function (1) the following reduction formula ([9], Equation 7.11.1(17)):
from which we obtain ([8], Equation 13.18.17)
where ([27], Equation 4.17.2)
denotes the Laguerre polynomials. We can now insert (A14) in (A13) and integrate term by term according to the definition of the integral Whittaker function (4) to obtain
Remark A1.
Taking in (A12), we recover the formula provided in [24].
Theorem A4.
The following reduction formula holds true for , and :
where denotes the upper incomplete gamma function.
Proof.
Following similar steps as in the previous theorem, here we instead consider the definition of the upper incomplete gamma function (A2). □
Theorem A5.
The following reduction formula holds true for , , and :
Proof.
From the property for ([7], Equation 48:13:3)
for we have
Remark A2.
It is worth noting here that we could not locate the reduction Formula (A18) in the existing literature.
Appendix C. Reduction Formulas for the Whittaker Function Mκ,μ(x)
For the convenience of readers, reduction formulas for the Whittaker function are presented in their explicit forms in Table A1 for .
Table A1.
Whittaker function for particular values of and .
Table A1.
Whittaker function for particular values of and .
| 1 | ||
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | ||
| 0 | 1 | |
| 0 | ||
| 0 | ||
| 0 | ||
| 0 | ||
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 1 | ||
| 1 | 1 | |
| 1 | ||
| 1 | 2 | |
| 2 | 2 |
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