We establish an integral representation for the Riesz transforms naturally
associated with classical Jacobi expansions. We prove that the Riesz-Jacobi
transforms of odd orders express as principal value integrals against kernels
having non-integrable singularities on the diagonal. On the other hand, we show
that the Riesz-Jacobi transforms of even orders are not singular operators. In
fact they are given as usual integrals against integrable kernels plus or
minus, depending on the order, the identity operator. Our analysis indicates
that similar results, existing in the literature and corresponding to several
other settings related to classical discrete and continuous orthogonal
expansions, should be reinvestigated so as to be refined and in some cases also
corrected.Comment: 30 page