Generalized Heine Identity for Complex Fourier Series of Binomials

Abstract

In this paper we generalize an identity first given by Heinrich Eduard Heine in his treatise, {\it Handbuch der Kugelfunctionen, Theorie und Anwendungen (1881), which gives a Fourier series for $1/[z-\cos\psi]^{1/2}$, for $z,\psi\in\R$, and $z>1$, in terms of associated Legendre functions of the second kind with odd-half-integer degree and vanishing order. In this paper we give a generalization of this identity as a Fourier series of $1/[z-\cos\psi]^\mu$, where $z,\mu\in\C$, $|z|>1$, and the coefficients of the expansion are given in terms of the same functions with order given by $\frac12-\mu$. We are also able to compute certain closed-form expressions for associated Legendre functions of the second kind.