Apéry-like numbers for non-commutative harmonic oscillators and automorphic integrals (Q6100160)

The paper is devoted to the study of special values of the spectral zeta functions \(\zeta_Q(s)\) of the non-commutative harmonic oscillator (for brevity, NcHO) as a sort of generating function of the eigenvalues. It is show that the generating function \(w_{2n}\) of Apéry-like numbers appearing in \(\zeta_Q(s)\) for \(n=2\) gives an example of automorphic integral with rational period functions in the sense of Knopp. Other number theoretic properties of the special values of \(\zeta_Q(s)\) at integer points are discussed, for example, special values are considered as moments of the partition functions. More precisely, the Apéry-like numbers \(J_k(n)\), \(k=0,1,2,\ldots,\) for each \(n\) defined through the first anomaly of \(\zeta_Q(s)\), \(n > 2\), are introduced. Then the recursion formula for the numbers \(J_k(n)\) and the differential equations satisfied by the generating functions of such numbers is proved. Also, meta-generating functions for Apéry-like numbers in relation to the study on modular Mahler measures are obtained.