Partial sums of the cotangent function

DOI10.5802/JTNB.1119MaRDI QIDQ2199681zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Sandro Bettin, Sary Drappeau

Publication date 14 September 2020

Published in Journal de Théorie des Nombres de Bordeaux (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.01954

zbMATH Keywords

continued fraction cotangent sum

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Continued fractions (11A55) Trigonometric and exponential sums (general theory) (11L03) Hurwitz and Lerch zeta functions (11M35)

Abstract: Nous prouvons l'existence de formules de r'eciprocit'e pour des sommes de la forme

s u m_{m = 1}^{k - 1} f (f r a c m k) c o t (p i f r a c m h k)

, o`u

f

est une fonction

C^{1}

par morceaux, qui met en 'evidence un ph'enom`ene d'alternance qui n'appara^it pas dans le cas classique o`u

f (x) = x

. Nous d'eduisons des majorations de ces sommes en termes du d'eveloppement en fraction continue de

h / k

. We prove the existence of reciprocity formulae for sums of the form

s u m_{m = 1}^{k - 1} f (f r a c m k) c o t (p i f r a c m h k)

where

f

is a piecewise

C^{1}

function, featuring an alternating phenomenon not visible in the classical case where

f (x) = x

. We deduce bounds for these sums in terms of the continued fraction expansion of

h / k

.

Review text

Let \(h\) and \(k\) be relatively prime natural numbers. Let \(f:\mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}\) be a \(1\)-periodic function that is piecewise \(\mathcal{C}^1\) and continuous except possibly at \(d\) points. The authors derive reciprocity formulae, and consequently bounds and inequalities, for sums of the form \[ S_f\left(\frac{h}{k}\right) = \frac{1}{k} \sum_{m=1}^{k-1} f\left(\frac{m}{k}\right) \cot \left(\pi \frac{mh}{k}\right). \] For example, when \(f(x) = -\frac{1}{4}\cot(\pi x)\), the authors obtain the classical Dedekind sum. When \(f\) is a suitable indicator function, the authors obtain the partial cotangent sums \[C_{\ell}\left(\frac{h}{k}\right)=\frac{1}{k} \sum_{1\le m\le \ell} \cot \left(\pi\frac{mh}{k}\right),\] where \(1\le \ell<k\). (So the indicator function is chosen depending on \(k\) and \(\ell\).) Another closely related sum considered by the authors is the Vasyunin sum, \[ V\left(\frac{h}{k}\right) = \sum_{m=1}^{k-1}\cot \left(\pi \frac{m\overline{h}}{k}\right), \] where \(\overline{h}\) is the multiplicative inverse of \(h\pmod k\). While it is known that the classical Dedekind sum, the complete cotangent sum (i.e., with \(\ell =k-1\)), and the Vasyunin sum satisfy exact and relatively simple reciprocity formulae, the partial cotangent sums do not appear to have such ``pure reciprocity formulae. The authors give a non-exact reciprocity formula for the partial cotangent sums, and more generally for the sums \(S_f\). Reciprocity formulae for \(S_f\) are of interest because by repeatedly applying these formulae in a similar manner to the Euclidean algorithm one may obtain inequalities and bounds for \(S_f(h/k)\) in terms of the continued fraction expansion of \(h/k\). The authors' main application, which is published in a separate paper, is to the Kashaev invariant of the figure eight knot and via better understanding the value distribution of \(J(x) =\sum_{n=0}^{\infty} \prod_{r=1}^n |1-e^{2\pi i rx}|^2\) for \(x\in \mathbb{Q}\). The authors' proof of their main reciprocity formula relies on classical tools from the theory of Hurwitz and periodic zeta functions, and follows the same approach as Theorem 5 in [the first author and \textit{B. Conrey}, Algebra Number Theory 7, No. 1, 215--242 (2013; Zbl 1291.11111)].

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