An Ap\'ery-like difference equation for Catalan's constant

Applying Zeilberger's algorithm of creative telescoping to a family of certain very-well-poised hypergeometric series involving linear forms in Catalan's constant with rational coefficients, we obtain a second-order difference equation for these forms and their coefficients. As a consequence we obtain a new way of fast calculation of Catalan's constant as well as a new continued-fraction expansion for it. Similar arguments can be put forward to indicate a second-order difference equation and a new continued fraction for $\zeta(4)=\pi^4/90$, and we announce corresponding results at the end of this paper.Comment: 10 pages; updating references (28 October 2002

One of the Odd Zeta Values from ζ(5)\zeta(5) to ζ(25)\zeta(25) Is Irrational. By Elementary Means

Available proofs of result of the type 'at least one of the odd zeta values $\zeta(5),\zeta(7),\dots,\zeta(s)$ is irrational' make use of the saddle-point method or of linear independence criteria, or both. These two remarkable techniques are however counted as highly non-elementary, therefore leaving the partial irrationality result inaccessible to general mathematics audience in all its glory. Here we modify the original construction of linear forms in odd zeta values to produce, for the first time, an elementary proof of such a result - a proof whose technical ingredients are limited to the prime number theorem and Stirling's approximation formula for the factorial

A Hypergeometric Version of the Modularity of Rigid Calabi-Yau Manifolds

We examine instances of modularity of (rigid) Calabi-Yau manifolds whose periods are expressed in terms of hypergeometric functions. The $p$-th coefficients $a(p)$ of the corresponding modular form can be often read off, at least conjecturally, from the truncated partial sums of the underlying hypergeometric series modulo a power of $p$ and from Weil's general bounds $|a(p)|\le2p^{(m-1)/2}$, where $m$ is the weight of the form. Furthermore, the critical $L$-values of the modular form are predicted to be $\mathbb Q$-proportional to the values of a related basis of solutions to the hypergeometric differential equation

Irrationality of values of zeta-function

We present several results on the number of irrational and linear independent values among $\zeta(s),\zeta(s+2),...,\zeta(s+2n)$, where $s>2$ is an odd integer and $n>0$ is an integer. The main tool in our proofs is a certain generalization of Rivoal's construction (math.NT/0008051, math.NT/0104221).Comment: 8+8 pages (English+Russian); to appear in the Proceedings of the Conference of Young Scientists (Moscow University, April 9-14, 2001