Formulas for Continued Fractions. An Automated Guess and Prove Approach

We describe a simple method that produces automatically closed forms for the coefficients of continued fractions expansions of a large number of special functions. The function is specified by a non-linear differential equation and initial conditions. This is used to generate the first few coefficients and from there a conjectured formula. This formula is then proved automatically thanks to a linear recurrence satisfied by some remainder terms. Extensive experiments show that this simple approach and its straightforward generalization to difference and $q$-difference equations capture a large part of the formulas in the literature on continued fractions.Comment: Maple worksheet attache

Advanced Determinant Calculus: A Complement

This is a complement to my previous article "Advanced Determinant Calculus" (S\'eminaire Lotharingien Combin. 42 (1999), Article B42q, 67 pp.). In the present article, I share with the reader my experience of applying the methods described in the previous article in order to solve a particular problem from number theory (G. Almkvist, J. Petersson and the author, Experiment. Math. 12 (2003), 441-456). Moreover, I add a list of determinant evaluations which I consider as interesting, which have been found since the appearance of the previous article, or which I failed to mention there, including several conjectures and open problems.Comment: AmS-LaTeX, 85 pages; Final, largely revised versio

The two electron molecular bond revisited: from Bohr orbits to two-center orbitals

In this review we first discuss extension of Bohr's 1913 molecular model and show that it corresponds to the large-D limit of a dimensional scaling (D-scaling) analysis, as developed by Herschbach and coworkers. In a separate but synergetic approach to the two-electron problem, we summarize recent advances in constructing analytical models for describing the two-electron bond. The emphasis here is not maximally attainable numerical accuracy, but beyond textbook accuracy as informed by physical insights. We demonstrate how the interplay of the cusp condition, the asymptotic condition, the electron-correlation, configuration interaction, and the exact one electron two-center orbitals, can produce energy results approaching chemical accuracy. Reviews of more traditional calculational approaches, such as Hartree-Fock, are also given. The inclusion of electron correlation via Hylleraas type functions is well known to be important, but difficult to implement for more than two electrons. The use of the D-scaled Bohr model offers the tantalizing possibility of obtaining electron correlation energy in a non-traditional way.Comment: 99 pages, 29 figures, review article, to appear in Advances in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physic