iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.
iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.



Link to original content: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel's_summation_formula
Abel's summation formula - Wikipedia

Abel's summation formula

In mathematics, Abel's summation formula, introduced by Niels Henrik Abel, is intensively used in analytic number theory and the study of special functions to compute series.

Formula

edit

Let   be a sequence of real or complex numbers. Define the partial sum function   by

 

for any real number  . Fix real numbers  , and let   be a continuously differentiable function on  . Then:

 

The formula is derived by applying integration by parts for a Riemann–Stieltjes integral to the functions   and  .

Variations

edit

Taking the left endpoint to be   gives the formula

 

If the sequence   is indexed starting at  , then we may formally define  . The previous formula becomes

 

A common way to apply Abel's summation formula is to take the limit of one of these formulas as  . The resulting formulas are

 

These equations hold whenever both limits on the right-hand side exist and are finite.

A particularly useful case is the sequence   for all  . In this case,  . For this sequence, Abel's summation formula simplifies to

 

Similarly, for the sequence   and   for all  , the formula becomes

 

Upon taking the limit as  , we find

 

assuming that both terms on the right-hand side exist and are finite.

Abel's summation formula can be generalized to the case where   is only assumed to be continuous if the integral is interpreted as a Riemann–Stieltjes integral:

 

By taking   to be the partial sum function associated to some sequence, this leads to the summation by parts formula.

Examples

edit

Harmonic numbers

edit

If   for   and   then   and the formula yields

 

The left-hand side is the harmonic number  .

Representation of Riemann's zeta function

edit

Fix a complex number  . If   for   and   then   and the formula becomes

 

If  , then the limit as   exists and yields the formula

 

where   is the Riemann zeta function. This may be used to derive Dirichlet's theorem that   has a simple pole with residue 1 at s = 1.

Reciprocal of Riemann zeta function

edit

The technique of the previous example may also be applied to other Dirichlet series. If   is the Möbius function and  , then   is Mertens function and

 

This formula holds for  .

See also

edit

References

edit
  • Apostol, Tom (1976), Introduction to Analytic Number Theory, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Springer-Verlag.