Jacobi triple product
In mathematics, the Jacobi triple product is the mathematical identity:
for complex numbers x and y, with |x| < 1 and y ≠ 0.
It was introduced by Jacobi (1829) in his work Fundamenta Nova Theoriae Functionum Ellipticarum.
The Jacobi triple product identity is the Macdonald identity for the affine root system of type A1, and is the Weyl denominator formula for the corresponding affine Kac–Moody algebra.
Properties
The basis of Jacobi's proof relies on Euler's pentagonal number theorem, which is itself a specific case of the Jacobi Triple Product Identity.
Let and . Then we have
The Jacobi Triple Product also allows the Jacobi theta function to be written as an infinite product as follows:
Let and
Then the Jacobi theta function
can be written in the form
Using the Jacobi Triple Product Identity we can then write the theta function as the product
There are many different notations used to express the Jacobi triple product. It takes on a concise form when expressed in terms of q-Pochhammer symbols:
where is the infinite q-Pochhammer symbol.
It enjoys a particularly elegant form when expressed in terms of the Ramanujan theta function. For it can be written as
Proof
For the analytic case, see Apostol, the first edition of which was published in 1976.
Notes
References
- See chapter 14, theorem 14.6 of Apostol, Tom M. (1976), Introduction to analytic number theory, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, New York-Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-90163-3, MR 0434929, Zbl 0335.10001
- Peter J. Cameron, Combinatorics: Topics, Techniques, Algorithms, (1994) Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-45761-0
- Jacobi, C. G. J. (1829), Fundamenta nova theoriae functionum ellipticarum (in Latin), Königsberg: Borntraeger, ISBN 978-1-108-05200-9, Reprinted by Cambridge University Press 2012