Remarks on Slater's asymptotic expansions of Kummer functions for large values of the $a-$parameter

Abstract

In Slater's 1960 standard work on confluent hypergeometric functions, also called Kummer functions, a number of asymptotic expansions of these functions can be found. We summarize expansions derived from a differential equation for large values of the $a-$parameter. We show how similar expansions can be derived by using integral representations, and we observe discrepancies with Slater's expansions.