Hermite's approach to Abelian integrals revisited

Abstract

In this article, we establish a new linear independence criterion for the values of certain {\it Lauricella hypergeometric series} $F_D$ with rational parameters, in both the complex and $p$-adic settings, over an algebraic number field. This result generalizes a theorem of C.~Hermite \cite{Hermite} on the linear independence of certain Abelian integrals. Our proof relies on explicit Padé-type approximations to solutions of a reducible Jordan-Pochhammer differential equation, which extends the Padé approximations for certain Abelian integrals in \cite{Hermite}. The main novelty of our approach lies in the proof of the non-vanishing of the determinants associated with these Padé-type approximants.