New asymptotic expansion for the gamma function (Q992016)

Using a series transformation, the Stirling-De Moivre asymptotic series approximation to the gamma function is converted into a new one with better convergence properties. The new formula is compared with those of Stirling, Laplace, and Ramanujan for real arguments greater than 0.5 and turns out to be, for equal number of correction terms, numerically superior to all of them. As a side benefit, a closed-form approximation has turned up during the analysis which is about as good as 3rd order Stirling's. The proofs are based on the Stirling-De Moivre series for the gamma function. The remainder of the new Nemes series is estimated uniformly. A table with numerical values of first coefficients is given. Numerical comparisons for small values of the argument with classical Stirling, Laplace and Ramanujan formulas are provided to show the superiority of the new Nemes series. Finally a closed approximation for \( \Gamma (x)\) (as \(x \to \infty)\) and an asymptotic expansion of \([n]\surd(n!)\) are given.