Two General Series Identities Involving Modified Bessel Functions and a Class of Arithmetical Functions

Abstract

We consider two sequences $a(n)$ and $b(n)$, $1\leq n<\infty$, generated by Dirichlet series $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{a(n)}{\lambda_n^{s}}\qquad\text{and}\qquad \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{b(n)}{\mu_n^{s}},$$ satisfying a familiar functional equation involving the gamma function $\Gamma(s)$. Two general identities are established. The first involves the modified Bessel function $K_{\mu}(z)$, and can be thought of as a 'modular' or 'theta' relation wherein modified Bessel functions, instead of exponential functions, appear. Appearing in the second identity are $K_{\mu}(z)$, the Bessel functions of imaginary argument $I_{\mu}(z)$, and ordinary hypergeometric functions ${_2F_1}(a,b;c;z)$. Although certain special cases appear in the literature, the general identities are new. The arithmetical functions appearing in the identities include Ramanujan's arithmetical function $\tau(n)$; the number of representations of $n$ as a sum of $k$ squares $r_k(n)$; and primitive Dirichlet characters $\chi(n)$.