Trigamma function

For Barnes's gamma function of 3 variables, see triple gamma function.

In mathematics, the trigamma function, denoted ψ₁(z) or ψ⁽¹⁾(z), is the second of the polygamma functions, and is defined by

Color representation of the trigamma function, ψ₁(z), in a rectangular region of the complex plane. It is generated using the domain coloring method.

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)={\frac {d^{2}}{dz^{2}}}\ln \Gamma (z)}$.

It follows from this definition that

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)={\frac {d}{dz}}\psi (z)}$

where ψ(z) is the digamma function. It may also be defined as the sum of the series

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{(z+n)^{2}}},}$

making it a special case of the Hurwitz zeta function

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)=\zeta (2,z).}$

Note that the last two formulas are valid when 1 − z is not a natural number.

Calculation

A double integral representation, as an alternative to the ones given above, may be derived from the series representation:

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)=\int _{0}^{1}\!\!\int _{0}^{x}{\frac {x^{z-1}}{y(1-x)}}\,dy\,dx}$ 

using the formula for the sum of a geometric series. Integration over y yields:

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)=-\int _{0}^{1}{\frac {x^{z-1}\ln {x}}{1-x}}\,dx}$ 

An asymptotic expansion as a Laurent series is

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z)={\frac {1}{z}}+{\frac {1}{2z^{2}}}+\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {B_{2k}}{z^{2k+1}}}=\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {B_{k}}{z^{k+1}}}}$ 

if we have chosen B₁ = 1/2, i.e. the Bernoulli numbers of the second kind.

Recurrence and reflection formulae

The trigamma function satisfies the recurrence relation

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(z+1)=\psi _{1}(z)-{\frac {1}{z^{2}}}}$ 

and the reflection formula

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(1-z)+\psi _{1}(z)={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{\sin ^{2}\pi z}}\,}$ 

which immediately gives the value for z = 1/2: ${\displaystyle \psi _{1}({\tfrac {1}{2}})={\tfrac {\pi ^{2}}{2}}}$ .

Special values

At positive half integer values we have that

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}\left(n+{\frac {1}{2}}\right)={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{2}}-4\sum _{k=1}^{n}{\frac {1}{(2k-1)^{2}}}.}$ 

Moreover, the trigamma function has the following special values:

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\psi _{1}\left({\tfrac {1}{4}}\right)&=\pi ^{2}+8G\quad &\psi _{1}\left({\tfrac {1}{2}}\right)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{2}}&\psi _{1}(1)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{6}}\\[6px]\psi _{1}\left({\tfrac {3}{2}}\right)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{2}}-4&\psi _{1}(2)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{6}}-1\\\psi _{1}(n)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{6}}-\sum _{k=1}^{n-1}{\frac {1}{k^{2}}}\end{aligned}}}$ 

where G represents Catalan's constant and n is a positive integer.

There are no roots on the real axis of ψ₁, but there exist infinitely many pairs of roots z_n, z_n for Re z < 0. Each such pair of roots approaches Re z_n = −n + 1/2 quickly and their imaginary part increases slowly logarithmic with n. For example, z₁ = −0.4121345... + 0.5978119...i and z₂ = −1.4455692... + 0.6992608...i are the first two roots with Im(z) > 0.

Relation to the Clausen function

The digamma function at rational arguments can be expressed in terms of trigonometric functions and logarithm by the digamma theorem. A similar result holds for the trigamma function but the circular functions are replaced by Clausen's function. Namely,^[1]

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}\left({\frac {p}{q}}\right)={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{2\sin ^{2}(\pi p/q)}}+2q\sum _{m=1}^{(q-1)/2}\sin \left({\frac {2\pi mp}{q}}\right){\textrm {Cl}}_{2}\left({\frac {2\pi m}{q}}\right).}$ 

Computation and approximation

An easy method to approximate the trigamma function is to take the derivative of the asymptotic expansion of the digamma function.

${\displaystyle \psi _{1}(x)\approx {\frac {1}{x}}+{\frac {1}{2x^{2}}}+{\frac {1}{6x^{3}}}-{\frac {1}{30x^{5}}}+{\frac {1}{42x^{7}}}-{\frac {1}{30x^{9}}}+{\frac {5}{66x^{11}}}-{\frac {691}{2730x^{13}}}+{\frac {7}{6x^{15}}}}$ 

Appearance

The trigamma function appears in this sum formula:^[2]

${\displaystyle \sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {n^{2}-{\frac {1}{2}}}{\left(n^{2}+{\frac {1}{2}}\right)^{2}}}\left(\psi _{1}{\bigg (}n-{\frac {i}{\sqrt {2}}}{\bigg )}+\psi _{1}{\bigg (}n+{\frac {i}{\sqrt {2}}}{\bigg )}\right)=-1+{\frac {\sqrt {2}}{4}}\pi \coth {\frac {\pi }{\sqrt {2}}}-{\frac {3\pi ^{2}}{4\sinh ^{2}{\frac {\pi }{\sqrt {2}}}}}+{\frac {\pi ^{4}}{12\sinh ^{4}{\frac {\pi }{\sqrt {2}}}}}\left(5+\cosh \pi {\sqrt {2}}\right).}$ 

See also

• Gamma function
• Digamma function
• Polygamma function
• Catalan's constant

Notes

1. Lewin, L., ed. (1991). Structural properties of polylogarithms. American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0821816349.
2. Mező, István (2013). "Some infinite sums arising from the Weierstrass Product Theorem". Applied Mathematics and Computation. 219 (18): 9838–9846. doi:10.1016/j.amc.2013.03.122.

References

• Milton Abramowitz and Irene A. Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions, (1964) Dover Publications, New York. ISBN 0-486-61272-4. See section §6.4
• Eric W. Weisstein. Trigamma Function -- from MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource