Summation of Legendre polynomials over a power law

legendre polynomialssequences-and-seriessummation

I am trying to find a closed-form for the summation:
$$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}\frac{P_{n}(x)}{(n+k)^{\alpha}}$$
where $P_{n}(x)$ denote the Legendre polynomials, k is a constant, and $\alpha$ is positive integer.
I have seen some special cases here for $\alpha=1$, But I am really interested when $\alpha$ is 2 or 3 or even higher. I do not know how to implement generating function for the Legendre polynomials here. Thank you.

Best Answer

Note that this is a solution as an integral, not a closed form solution

Let's start with the generating function

$$ \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-2xt+t^2}}=\sum_{n=0}^\infty P_n(x)t^n $$

Multiply by $t^{k-1}$ and get

$$ \frac{t^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xt+t^2}}=\sum_{n=0}^\infty P_n(x)t^{n+k-1} $$

We replace $t\mapsto u$ and integrate $u$ from $0$ to $t$ and get

$$ \int_0^t\frac{u^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}\,du=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{n+k} $$

Now divide by $t$, do another substitution $t\mapsto v$ and integrate this from $0$ to $t$ to get

$$ \int_0^t\frac{1}{v}\int_0^v\frac{u^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xt+t^2}}\,dudv=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^2} $$

This double integral is performed over a triangular region in $uv$ space. Switching the order of integration yields

$$ \int_0^t\int_u^t\frac{1}{v}\frac{u^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xt+t^2}}\,dvdu=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^2} $$

We can evaluate the integral in $v$ to get

$$ \int_0^t\frac{u^{k-1}\ln(t/u)}{\sqrt{1-2xt+t^2}}\,du=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^2} $$

We continue this process, but the result is weird. We again divide by $t$, replace $t\mapsto v$, and integrate from $0$ to $t$ to get

$$ \int_0^t\frac{1}{v}\int_0^v\frac{u^{k-1}\ln(v/u)}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}\,dudv=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^3} $$

We swap the order and factor some terms to make the equation a bit simpler to get

$$\int_0^t\left(\int_u^t\frac{\ln(v/u)}{v}\,dv\right)\frac{u^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}\,du=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^3} $$

We do a change of variable; let $w=v/u$ and $dw=(1/u)dv$ to get

$$\int_0^t\left(\int_1^{t/u}\frac{\ln(w)}{w}\,dw\right)\frac{u^{k-1}}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}\,du=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^3} $$

Integrating with respect to $w$ gives

$$\frac{1}{2}\int_0^t\frac{u^{k-1}\ln^2(t/u)}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}\,du=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^3} $$

This process can be repeated indefinitely (I'll skip the rigorous details, since they are long and tedious) and we are left with the generalized equation of

$$ \frac{1}{(\alpha-1)!}\int_0^t\frac{u^{k-1}\ln^{\alpha-1}(t/u)}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)t^{n+k}}{(n+k)^\alpha},\;\;\;\;\alpha=1,2,3,... $$

Let $t=1$ and we have

$$\boxed{ \frac{(-1)^{\alpha-1}}{(\alpha-1)!}\int_0^1\frac{u^{k-1}\ln^{\alpha-1}(u)}{\sqrt{1-2xu+u^2}}=\sum_{n=0}^\infty\frac{P_n(x)}{(n+k)^\alpha},\;\;\;\;\alpha=1,2,3,... }$$

We can see how a solution for $\alpha=1$ could be obtained, since the log term disappears in this form. A more straightforward approach to this answer comes from a well known result of

$$\int_0^1 t^\mu\ln^k(t)\,dt=(-1)^k\frac{k!}{(\mu+1)^{k+1}}$$

Thus, we could have simply multiplied the generating function by $t^{k-1}\ln^{\alpha-1}(t)$, integrated from $0$ to $1$, then rearranged a bit.

Related Question