Some theta function identities related to the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction

Son, Seung

doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-98-04516-X

Some theta function identities related to the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction
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by Seung Hwan Son PDF

Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 126 (1998), 2895-2902 Request permission

Abstract:

In his first and second letters to Hardy, Ramanujan made several assertions about the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction $F(q)$. In order to prove some of these claims, G. N. Watson established two important theorems about $F(q)$ that he found in Ramanujan’s notebooks. In his lost notebook, after stating a version of the quintuple product identity, Ramanujan offers three theta function identities, two of which contain as special cases the celebrated two theorems of Ramanujan proved by Watson. Using addition formulas, the quintuple product identity, and a new general product formula for theta functions, we prove these three identities of Ramanujan from his lost notebooks.

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