Methods of computing Campbell-Hausdorff formula (Q2836128)

This article describes some new methods of computing summands in the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff-Dynkin formula \(C = C_1 + C_2 + C_3 + \dots\) for \(e^C = e^A \cdot e^B\), where the index for \(C\) means an amount of A's and B's in the commutators. The known formulas for \(C_1, C_2, C_3\) are deduced. But the new method enables one to use symbolic language software to compute arbitrary terms in the formula. Explicit expressions up to the 6-th order are obtained. For example, \(C_4 = \frac{1}{24} [B,[A,[B,A]]]\), \(C_5 = \frac{1}{720}([A,[A,[A,[B,A]]]] +2[A,[B,[B,[B,A]]]]) +6[A,[B,[A,[B,A]]]]+ (A \leftrightharpoons B))\) (where \((A \leftrightharpoons B)\) means that in this formula there are three additional summands which are similar to the first three ones, but A and B are interchanged).NEWLINENEWLINEThis new method is compared with the known method of A. W. Knapp.