Skip to main content
Log in

Harmonic Number Expansions of the Ramanujan Type

  • Published:
Results in Mathematics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper, we establish three (general) asymptotic expansions of the Ramanujan type for the harmonic numbers, and give the corresponding recurrences of the coefficient sequence or parameter sequences in these expansions. We also present two explicit expressions for the coefficient sequence of the first expansion by the methods of generating functions and summation transformations. It can be found that the first expansion includes the classical Ramanujan formula, the DeTemple–Wang formula and the Chen–Mortici–Villarino formula as special cases, and the third one includes the refinement of Lodge’s approximation as a special case. Moreover, the second and third expansions are lacunary and contain only even power terms or odd power terms. By these expansions, we give unified approaches to dealing with asymptotic expansions of the Ramanujan type for the harmonic numbers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Berndt, B.C.: Ramanujan’s Notebooks. Part V. Springer, New York (1998)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. Burić, T., Elezović, N.: Approximants of the Euler–Mascheroni constant and harmonic numbers. Appl. Math. Comput. 222, 604–611 (2013)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Cao, X.: Multiple-correction and continued fraction approximation. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 424(2), 1425–1446 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Cao, X., Xu, H., You, X.: Multiple-correction and faster approximation. J. Number Theory 149, 327–350 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  5. Chen, C.-P.: On the coefficients of asymptotic expansion for the harmonic number by Ramanujan. Ramanujan J. 40(2), 279–290 (2016)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Chen, C.-P.: Stirling expansions into negative powers of a triangular number. Ramanujan J. 39(1), 107–116 (2016)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Chen, C.-P., Cheng, J.-X.: Ramanujan’s asymptotic expansion for the harmonic numbers. Ramanujan J. 38(1), 123–128 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Chen, C.-P., Mortici, C.: New sequence converging towards the Euler–Mascheroni constant. Comput. Math. Appl. 64(4), 391–398 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. DeTemple, D.W., Wang, S.-H.: Half integer approximations for the partial sums of the harmonic series. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 160(1), 149–156 (1991)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Feng, L., Wang, W.: Riordan array approach to the coefficients of Ramanujan’s harmonic number expansion. Results Math. 71(3–4), 1413–1419 (2017)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Hirschhorn, M.D.: Ramanujan’s enigmatic formula for the harmonic series. Ramanujan J. 27(3), 343–347 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Issaka, A.: An asymptotic series related to Ramanujan’s expansion for the \(n\)th harmonic number. Ramanujan J. 39(2), 303–313 (2016)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Lu, D.: A new quicker sequence convergent to Euler’s constant. J. Number Theory 136, 320–329 (2014)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Lu, D.: Some quicker classes of sequences convergent to Euler’s constant. Appl. Math. Comput. 232, 172–177 (2014)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Lu, D., Song, L., Yu, Y.: Some new continued fraction approximation of Euler’s constant. J. Number Theory 147, 69–80 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  16. Lodge, A.: An approximate expression for the value of \(1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{3}+\cdots +\frac{1}{r}\). Messenger Math. 30, 103–107 (1904)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Mortici, C.: On new sequences converging towards the Euler–Mascheroni constant. Comput. Math. Appl. 59(8), 2610–2614 (2010)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  18. Mortici, C.: On the Stirling expansion into negative powers of a triangular number. Math. Commun. 15(2), 359–364 (2010)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Mortici, C., Chen, C.-P.: On the harmonic number expansion by Ramanujan. J. Inequal. Appl. 2013, 222 (2013)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Mortici, C., Villarino, M.B.: On the Ramanujan–Lodge harmonic number expansion. Appl. Math. Comput. 251, 423–430 (2015)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Nemes, G.: Asymptotic expansion for \(\log n!\) in terms of the reciprocal of a triangular number. Acta Math. Hung. 129(3), 254–262 (2010)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. Nemes, G.: More accurate approximations for the gamma function. Thai J. Math. 9(1), 21–28 (2011)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Shapiro, L.W., Getu, S., Woan, W.J., Woodson, L.C.: The Riordan group. Discrete Appl. Math. 34(1–3), 229–239 (1991)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  24. Sprugnoli, R.: Riordan arrays and combinatorial sums. Discrete Math. 132(1–3), 267–290 (1994)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  25. Villarino, M.B.: Ramanujan’s harmonic number expansion into negative powers of a triangular number. JIPAM. J. Inequal. Pure Appl. Math. 9(3), 89 (2008)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  26. Wang, W.: Unified approaches to the approximations of the gamma function. J. Number Theory 163, 570–595 (2016)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  27. Xu, H., You, X.: Continued fraction inequalities for the Euler–Mascheroni constant. J. Inequal. Appl. 2014, 343 (2014)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  28. Yang, S.: On an open problem of Chen and Mortici concerning the Euler–Mascheroni constant. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 396(2), 689–693 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  29. You, X., Chen, D.-R.: Some sharp continued fraction inequalities for the Euler–Mascheroni constant. J. Inequal. Appl. 2015, 308 (2015)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (under Grant 11671360), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (under Grant LQ17A010010).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Weiping Wang.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, W. Harmonic Number Expansions of the Ramanujan Type. Results Math 73, 161 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00025-018-0920-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00025-018-0920-8

Keywords

Mathematics Subject Classification

Navigation