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Towards the end of G. N. Watson's (one of the joint authors of famous book "A Course of Modern Analysis") paper "The Final Problem: An Account of the Mock Theta Functions" the following formula of Ramanujan is mentioned: $$\int_{0}^{\infty}e^{-3\pi x^{2}}\frac{\sinh \pi x}{\sinh 3\pi x}\,dx = \frac{1}{e^{2\pi/3}\sqrt{3}}\sum_{n = 0}^{\infty}\frac{e^{-2n(n + 1)\pi}}{(1 + e^{-\pi})^{2}(1 + e^{-3\pi})^{2}\dots(1 + e^{-(2n + 1)\pi})^{2}}\tag{1}$$ where the term corresponding to $n = 0$ in the sum on the right is $1$.

Is there way to establish this exotic integral formula? Or a reference to any existing proof of $(1)$ would be of great help.

  • I'd try applying Plancharel-Parseval to $e^{-3\pi x^2}$ .. – r9m Jul 09 '15 at 06:06
  • Maybe it's useful http://www.fuchs-braun.com/media/78bb2c662df08bdfffff8024fffffff1.pdf – Marco Cantarini Jul 09 '15 at 07:51
  • @MarcoCantarini That's the complete Vol.4 .. could you tell me which pages has the relevant results? Thank you. – r9m Jul 09 '15 at 09:47
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    @r9m from page 307. – Marco Cantarini Jul 09 '15 at 09:51
  • @MarcoCantarini: On the basis of that it appears the value of integral here is $-i\psi_{1/3}(i/3)/3$ – Paramanand Singh Jul 09 '15 at 10:07
  • @ParamanandSingh Yes, I didn't find the expression with the series, but maybe there is some identity that can help. – Marco Cantarini Jul 09 '15 at 10:09
  • @MarcoCantarini: It appears that there are formulas to calculate $\psi_{w}(t)$ for $t = mw \pm ni$ where $m, n$ are integers. This does not seem to help calculate $\psi_{w}(i/3)$. – Paramanand Singh Jul 09 '15 at 10:12
  • @ParamanandSingh I didn't read completely it, I don't know if you can find the exactly result there. I only saw that it's related to your question and maybe there is something interesting (or maybe not! :) ) – Marco Cantarini Jul 09 '15 at 10:16
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    @MarcoCantarini: Anyway thanks a lot for the book! – Paramanand Singh Jul 09 '15 at 10:23
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    http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/598163/prove-sin-a-int-infty-infty-cosax2-frac-sinh2ax-sinh-pi-x?rq=1 http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/380475/finding-a-generalization-for-int-0-inftye-3-pi-x2-frac-sinh-pi – tired Jul 09 '15 at 11:15
  • @tired: Thanks for those links. They do provide some related information, but unfortunately I don't see a route to the full solution of the problem. – Paramanand Singh Jul 10 '15 at 03:30

1 Answers1

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I re-posted this on MO and got the desired answer. The answer to the question is contained in the same paper of G. N. Watson which is referred to in the question.

The integral in the question comes up in the transformation formulas for the one of the several mock theta functions defined by Ramanujan. The series in equation $(1)$ of the question is the value of a certain mock theta function $\omega(q)$ at the point $q = -e^{-\pi}$.

Let $q$ be real with $|q| < 1$ and we define the mock theta function $\omega(q)$ via the equation $$\omega(q) = \sum_{n = 0}^{\infty}\frac{q^{2n(n + 1)}}{(1 - q)^{2}(1 - q^{3})^{2}\dots (1 - q^{2n + 1})^{2}}\tag{1}$$ so that $$\omega(-q) = \sum_{n = 0}^{\infty}\frac{q^{2n(n + 1)}}{(1 + q)^{2}(1 + q^{3})^{2}\dots (1 + q^{2n + 1})^{2}}\tag{2}$$ and the question asks us to prove $$\int_{0}^{\infty}e^{-3\pi x^{2}}\frac{\sinh \pi x}{\sinh 3\pi x}\,dx = \frac{q^{2/3}}{\sqrt{3}}\omega(-q)\tag{3}$$ with $q = e^{-\pi}$.

Watson proves a transformation formula for $\omega(-q)$ in his paper which uses the integral mentioned in the question. He shows that if $\alpha, \beta$ are positive real numbers such that $\alpha\beta = \pi^{2}$ and $q = e^{-\alpha}, q_{1} = e^{-\beta}$ then $$q^{2/3}\omega(-q) + \sqrt{\frac{\pi}{\alpha}}q_{1}^{2/3}\omega(-q_{1}) = 2\sqrt{\frac{3\alpha}{\pi}}I(\alpha)\tag{4}$$ where $$I(\alpha) = \int_{0}^{\infty}e^{-3\alpha x^{2}}\frac{\sinh \alpha x}{\sinh 3\alpha x}\,dx\tag{5}$$ Putting $\alpha = \beta = \pi$ in $(4)$ and noting that $q = q_{1} = e^{-\pi}$ we get equation $(3)$. So the crux of the problem is to prove the transformation formula $(4)$ and this is a difficult task which Watson achieved via finding another suitable series representation for $\omega(q)$ and using residue calculus to convert the series for $\omega(q)$ into a contour integral. See Watson's paper for more details.