Dirichlet's eta and beta functions: concavity and fast computation of their derivatives (Q2517134)

The authors consider, for \(a\in (0, \infty)\) and \(t\in (0, \infty)\), the function \[ \eta_a(t)=\sum_{m=0}^\infty{(-1)^m\over (am+1)^t}\,. \] \textit{H. Alzer} and \textit{M. K. Kwong} [J. Number Theory 151, 172--196 (2015; Zbl 1311.11087)] proved that the function \( \eta_1(t)\) is strictly concave on \((0, \infty)\). The authors extend the above result for all \(a\in (0, \infty)\). Moreover, they obtain that \[ \lim\limits_{t\to 0} \eta_a(t)={1\over 2} \quad {\text{and}} \quad \lim\limits_{t\to\infty} \eta_a(t)=1. \] Also, they consider the derivatives \(\eta_a^{(k)}(t)\), and prove the formula \[ \eta_a^{(k)}(t)={2\over 3} \sum_{n=0}^\infty{c_{a, t, k}(n)\over 3^n} \] with \[ c_{a, t, k}(n)=(-1)^{n+k}\sum_{l=0}^n \binom {n}{l} \Delta^{n-l}{\log^k(al+1)\over (al+1)^t}, \] where \(\Delta^nf\) denotes the \(n\)th forward difference of \(f\). From this formula, the estimate for the coefficients \(c_{a, t, k}(n)\) follows.