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Background

The general context for this question is the topic of rational zeta series. What I've found so far, is that it usually the case that sums of the form $$\zeta_{f} := \sum_{n=2}^{\infty} f(n) \left( \zeta(n)-1 \right) \label{1}\tag{1} $$ are more difficult to evaluate than sums of the form $$S_{f} := \sum_{n=2}^{\infty} f(n). \label{2}\tag{2} $$

Examples

  • For instance, if we take $g(x) = \frac{1}{x!}$, then we have $$ S_{g} = e-2, \tag{3}\label{3} $$ but for $ \zeta_{g}$ a closed form is not known.
  • Also if we consider $h(x) = \frac{1}{x^2}$, then we have $$S_{h} = \frac{\pi^2}{6} -1. \tag{4}\label{4}$$ However, an evaluation of $\zeta_{h}$ appears to be still out of reach.
  • If we take $v(x) = \frac{(-1)^x}{x-1}$, we have $$ S_{v} = \ln(2), \tag{5}\label{5}$$ but an evaluation of $\zeta_{v}$ seems to be elusive -- see also equation (1.23) in corollary 4 of the following paper.

Question

I wonder whether there are any cases for which the situation is reversed. In other words, I am curious as to whether there are examples of functions such that \eqref{1} can be evaluated, but \eqref{2} cannot. Both $\zeta_{f}$ and $S_{f}$ should be finite, so an example like $q(x) = \frac{1}{x}$ -- where we have $\zeta_{q} = 1-\gamma$, but $S_{q}$ diverges -- does not count. Moreover, the function ought to be analytic on $\mathbb{R}_{\geq 2}$.

Note: in examples \eqref{3}, \eqref{4}, and \eqref{5}, the sums can be decomposed into \begin{align} \zeta_{f} &= \sum_{n=2}^{\infty} f(n) \zeta(n) - S_{f} \\ &:= \zeta'_{f} - S_{f},\end{align} where $\zeta'_{f}$ can't be evaluated (yet), so $\zeta_{f}$ can't be evaluated either.

Max Muller
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  • A bit tongue in cheek and definitely not in the spirit of the question (but showing the slipperiness of the question of this type) is to take $f(x)=\frac{1}{x^2 (\zeta(x)-1)}, x > 1$; now the above example is analytic in a neighborhood of $(1, \infty)$ but fails to be analytic on $\Re z > 1$ because $\zeta(z)=1$ has many (nonreal) solutions there by quasi periodicity but we can add to $\zeta-1$ a periodic function that grows fast on the imaginary axis etc – Conrad Nov 11 '23 at 15:22
  • @Conrad Thank you for your comment. If you have any suggestions to rule out such "pathological" examples, please let me know – Max Muller Nov 11 '23 at 15:33
  • that's a very good question - and again I realize that my "example" is not what you have in mind - but I am not sure how you would rule out such without imposing some conditions of "naturalness" which are vague; maybe $f$ "elementary" so obtained from algebraic operations on polynomials, exponentials, logarithms, maybe some basic transcendental functions like Bessel and/or polylogarithms - eg ones that satisfy ODE's over $C[x]$ or $Q[x]$ etc – Conrad Nov 11 '23 at 15:45
  • @Conrad I will definitely consider these suggestions -- they seem appropriate. Another option might be to demand that $f(n) \in \mathbb{Q} \setminus { 0 }$ for all $n \in \mathbb{Z}{\geq 2}$, since then $\zeta{f}$ is a rational zeta series indeed. – Max Muller Nov 11 '23 at 16:17

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