How can we escape Thomae's relations? (Q819563)

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How can we escape Thomae's relations?
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    How can we escape Thomae's relations? (English)
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    29 March 2006
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    In 1879, Thomae discussed the relations between two generic hypergeometric \(_3F_2\)-series with argument 1. It is well-known since then that, in combination with the trivial ones which come from permutations of the parameters of the hypergeometric series, Thomae had found a set of 120 relations. More recently, Rhin and Viola asked the following question (in a different, but equivalent language of integrals): If there exists a linear dependence relation over \(\mathbb{Q}\) between two convergent \(_3F_2\)-series with argument 1, with integral parameters, and whose values are irrational numbers, is this relation a specialisation of one of the 120 Thomae relations? A few years later, Sato answered this question in the negative, by giving six examples of relations which cannot be explained by Thomae's relations. The authors show that Sato's counter-examples can be naturally embedded into two families of infinitely many \(_3F_2\)-relations, both parametrised by three independent parameters. Moreover, the authors find two more infinite families of the same nature. The families, which do not seem to have been recorded before, come from certain \(_3F_2\)-transformation formulae and contiguous relations. As an example, the first of these families which covers five of Sato's six original relations is given in Theorem 1: Let \(\alpha, \beta,\gamma\) be complex numbers such that \(2\alpha +\beta + 1\) and \(2\beta +\alpha +1\) are not non-positive integers, and such that \(\operatorname{Re}(2\alpha +2\beta -\gamma)>0.\) Then \[ _3F_2 \left[{{\alpha+1,\;\beta+1,\;\gamma} \atop {2\alpha + \beta +1,\; 2\beta + \alpha+1,}};1 \right] = {{\frac{2(\alpha+\beta)}{2(\alpha+ \beta)-\gamma}}}\; _3F_2 \left[{{\alpha, \beta, \gamma \atop 2\alpha + \beta + 1, \; 2\beta + \alpha +1}};1\right]\cdot \]
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    hypergeometric series
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    Thomae transformations
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    contiguous relations
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    multiple integrals
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    irrationality of zeta values
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