The three-term recurrence relation and the differentiation formulas for hypergeometric-type functions (Q1343973)

The authors reconsider the differential equation \[ \sigma (z)y'' + \tau (z)y' + \lambda y = 0, \] where \(\sigma (z)\) and \(\tau (z)\) are polynomials of degrees not higher than two and one, respectively, while \(\lambda\) is a constant, and give the recurrence relations between the solutions (and their first order derivatives) which can be represented as follows: \[ y_ \nu (z) = {C_ \nu \over \rho (z)} \int_ C {\sigma^ \nu (s) \rho (s) \over (s - z)^{\nu + 1}}ds. \] Here \(C_ \nu\) is a normalization constant; \(\rho (z)\) is a solution of the equation \((\sigma \rho)' = \tau \rho\); \(\nu\) is a root of the algebraic equation \(\nu (\nu - 1)\) \(\sigma'' + 2 \lambda + 2 \nu \tau' = 0\) and, finally, \(C\) is a contour with end points \(s_ 1\) and \(s_ 2\) such that \[ \sigma^{\nu + 1} (s) \rho (s) (s - z)^{- \nu - 2} |^{s_ 2}_{s_ 1} = 0. \] The relations they derive are three-terms relations; namely \[ A_ 1y_{\nu + 1} (z) + A_ 2 (z)y_ \nu (z) + A_ 3 y_{\nu - 1} (z) = 0 \] \[ \sigma (z) y_ \nu' (z) = (\overline {\alpha_ \nu} z + \overline {\beta_ \nu}) y_ \nu (z) + \overline {\gamma_ \nu} y_{\nu + 1} (z) \] \[ \sigma (z) y_ \nu' (z) = (\widetilde \alpha_ \nu z + \widetilde \beta_ \nu) y_ \nu (z) + \widetilde \gamma_ \nu y_{\nu - 1} (z). \] They give the explicit expressions of \(A_ i\), \(\overline \alpha_ \nu\), \(\overline \beta_ \nu\), \(\overline \gamma_ \nu\), \(\widetilde \alpha_ \nu\), \(\widetilde \beta_ \nu\) and \(\widetilde \gamma_ \nu\) in terms of the coefficient \(\tau (z)\) and \(\sigma (z)\). The results are applied to some polynomials of hypergeometric type for which \(\nu\) is a positive integer, say \(n\).