Padé Approximations and Irrationality Measures on Values of Confluent Hypergeometric Functions

Abstract

Padé approximations are approximations of holomorphic functions by rational functions. The application of Padé approximations to Diophantine approximations has a long history dating back to Hermite. In this paper, we use the Maier–Chudnovsky construction of Padé-type approximation to study irrationality properties about values of functions with the form f(x)=∑k=0∞xkk!(bk+s)(bk+s+1)⋯(bk+t), where b,t,s are positive integers and obtain upper bounds for irrationality measures of their values at nonzero rational points. Important examples includes exponential integral, Gauss error function and Kummer’s confluent hypergeometric functions.

Keywords

• Padé approximation
• Diophantine approximation
• irrationality
• confluent hypergeometric function