Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction


The Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction is a continued fraction discovered by and independently by Srinivasa Ramanujan, and closely related to the Rogers–Ramanujan identities. It can be evaluated explicitly for a broad class of values of its argument.
representation of the convergent of the function, where is the Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction.

Definition

Given the functions G and H appearing in the Rogers–Ramanujan identities,
and,
and, respectively, where denotes the infinite q-Pochhammer symbol, j is the j-function, and 2F1 is the hypergeometric function, then the Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction is,

Modular functions

If, then and, as well as their quotient, are modular functions of. Since they have integral coefficients, the theory of complex multiplication implies that their values for an imaginary quadratic irrational are algebraic numbers that can be evaluated explicitly.

Examples

where is the golden ratio.

Relation to modular forms

It can be related to the Dedekind eta function, a modular form of weight 1/2, as,

Relation to j-function

Among the many formulas of the j-function, one is,
where
Eliminating the eta quotient, one can then express j in terms of as,
where the numerator and denominator are polynomial invariants of the icosahedron. Using the modular equation between and, one finds that,
let,then
where
which in fact is the j-invariant of the elliptic curve,
parameterized by the non-cusp points of the modular curve.

Functional equation

For convenience, one can also use the notation when q = e2πiτ. While other modular functions like the j-invariant satisfies,
and the Dedekind eta function has,
the functional equation of the Rogers–Ramanujan continued fraction involves the golden ratio,
Incidentally,

Modular equations

There are modular equations between and. Elegant ones for small prime n are as follows.
For, let and, then
For, let and, then
For, let and, then
For, let and, then
Regarding, note that

Other results

Ramanujan found many other interesting results regarding R. Let,, and as the golden ratio.
The powers of R also can be expressed in unusual ways. For its cube,
where,
For its fifth power, let, then,