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Euler's constant

Euler's constant (sometimes called the Euler–Mascheroni constant) is a mathematical constant, usually denoted by the lowercase Greek letter gamma (γ), defined as the limiting difference between the harmonic series and the natural logarithm, denoted here by log:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\lim _{n\to \infty }\left(-\log n+\sum _{k=1}^{n}{\frac {1}{k}}\right)\\[5px]&=\int _{1}^{\infty }\left(-{\frac {1}{x}}+{\frac {1}{\lfloor x\rfloor }}\right)\,\mathrm {d} x.\end{aligned}}}$$

Here, ⌊·⌋ represents the floor function.

The numerical value of Euler's constant, to 50 decimal places, is:^[1]

Is Euler's constant irrational? If so, is it transcendental?

History[edit]

The constant first appeared in a 1734 paper by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, titled De Progressionibus harmonicis observationes (Eneström Index 43). Euler used the notations C and O for the constant. In 1790, the Italian mathematician Lorenzo Mascheroni used the notations A and a for the constant. The notation γ appears nowhere in the writings of either Euler or Mascheroni, and was chosen at a later time, perhaps because of the constant's connection to the gamma function.^[2] For example, the German mathematician Carl Anton Bretschneider used the notation γ in 1835,^[3] and Augustus De Morgan used it in a textbook published in parts from 1836 to 1842.^[4]

Appearances[edit]

Euler's constant appears, among other places, in the following (where '*' means that this entry contains an explicit equation):

• Expressions involving the exponential integral*
• The Laplace transform* of the natural logarithm
• The first term of the Laurent series expansion for the Riemann zeta function*, where it is the first of the Stieltjes constants*
• Calculations of the digamma function
• A product formula for the gamma function
• The asymptotic expansion of the gamma function for small arguments.
• An inequality for Euler's totient function
• The growth rate of the divisor function
• Indimensional regularizationofFeynman diagramsinquantum field theory
• The calculation of the Meissel–Mertens constant
• The third of Mertens' theorems*
• Solution of the second kind to Bessel's equation
• In the regularization/renormalization of the harmonic series as a finite value
• The mean of the Gumbel distribution
• The information entropy of the Weibull and Lévy distributions, and, implicitly, of the chi-squared distribution for one or two degrees of freedom.
• The answer to the coupon collector's problem*
• In some formulations of Zipf's law
• A definition of the cosine integral*
• Lower bounds to a prime gap
• An upper bound on Shannon entropyinquantum information theory^[5]
• Fisher–Orr model for genetics of adaptation in evolutionary biology^[6]
• Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory of superconductivity (BCS theory), where it appears as prefactor ${\displaystyle 2e^{\gamma }/\pi =1.134}$ in the BCS equation on the critical temperature.

Properties[edit]

The number γ has not been proved algebraicortranscendental. In fact, it is not even known whether γisirrational. Using a continued fraction analysis, Papanikolaou showed in 1997 that if γisrational, its denominator must be greater than 10²⁴⁴⁶⁶³.^[7][8] The ubiquity of γ revealed by the large number of equations below makes the irrationality of γ a major open question in mathematics.^[9]

However, some progress has been made. Kurt Mahler showed in 1968 that the number ${\displaystyle {\frac {\pi }{2}}{\frac {Y_{0}($2)}{J_{0}(2)}}-\gamma } is transcendental (here, ${\displaystyle J_{\alpha }($x)} and ${\displaystyle Y_{\alpha }($x)} are Bessel functions).^[10][2] In 2009 Alexander Aptekarev proved that at least one of Euler's constant γ and the Euler–Gompertz constant δ is irrational;^[11] Tanguy Rivoal proved in 2012 that at least one of them is transcendental.^[12][2] In 2010 M. Ram Murty and N. Saradha showed that at most one of the numbers of the form

$${\displaystyle \gamma (a,q)=\lim _{n\rightarrow \infty }\left(\left(\sum _{k=0}^{n}{\frac {1}{a+kq}}\right)-{\frac {\log {(a+nq})}{q}}\right)}$$

with q ≥ 2 and 1 ≤ a < q is algebraic; this family includes the special case γ(2,4) = γ/4.^[2][13] In 2013 M. Ram Murty and A. Zaytseva found a different family containing γ, which is based on sums of reciprocals of integers not divisible by a fixed list of primes, with the same property.^[2][14]

Relation to gamma function[edit]

γ is related to the digamma function Ψ, and hence the derivative of the gamma function Γ, when both functions are evaluated at 1. Thus:

$${\displaystyle -\gamma =\Gamma '($$1)=\Psi (1).}

This is equal to the limits:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}-\gamma &=\lim _{z\to 0}\left(\Gamma ($$z)-{\frac {1}{z}}\right)\\&=\lim _{z\to 0}\left(\Psi (z)+{\frac {1}{z}}\right).\end{aligned}}}

Further limit results are:^[15]

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\lim _{z\to 0}{\frac {1}{z}}\left({\frac {1}{\Gamma (1+z)}}-{\frac {1}{\Gamma (1-z)}}\right)&=2\gamma \\\lim _{z\to 0}{\frac {1}{z}}\left({\frac {1}{\Psi (1-z)}}-{\frac {1}{\Psi (1+z)}}\right)&={\frac {\pi ^{2}}{3\gamma ^{2}}}.\end{aligned}}}$$

A limit related to the beta function (expressed in terms of gamma functions) is

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\lim _{n\to \infty }\left({\frac {\Gamma \left({\frac {1}{n}}\right)\Gamma (n+1)\,n^{1+{\frac {1}{n}}}}{\Gamma \left(2+n+{\frac {1}{n}}\right)}}-{\frac {n^{2}}{n+1}}\right)\\&=\lim \limits _{m\to \infty }\sum _{k=1}^{m}{m \choose k}{\frac {(-1)^{k}}{k}}\log {\big (}\Gamma (k+1){\big )}.\end{aligned}}}$$

Relation to the zeta function[edit]

γ can also be expressed as an infinite sum whose terms involve the Riemann zeta function evaluated at positive integers:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\sum _{m=2}^{\infty }(-1)^{m}{\frac {\zeta ($$m)}{m}}\\&=\log {\frac {4}{\pi }}+\sum _{m=2}^{\infty }(-1)^{m}{\frac {\zeta (m)}{2^{m-1}m}}.\end{aligned}}} The constant ${\displaystyle \gamma }$ can also be expressed in terms of the sum of the reciprocals of non-trivial zeros ${\displaystyle \rho }$ of the zeta function:^[16]

${\displaystyle \gamma =\log 4\pi +\sum _{\rho }{\frac {2}{\rho }}-2}$

Other series related to the zeta function include:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &={\tfrac {3}{2}}-\log 2-\sum _{m=2}^{\infty }(-1)^{m}\,{\frac {m-1}{m}}{\big (}\zeta ($$m)-1{\big )}\\&=\lim _{n\to \infty }\left({\frac {2n-1}{2n}}-\log n+\sum _{k=2}^{n}\left({\frac {1}{k}}-{\frac {\zeta (1-k)}{n^{k}}}\right)\right)\\&=\lim _{n\to \infty }\left({\frac {2^{n}}{e^{2^{n}}}}\sum _{m=0}^{\infty }{\frac {2^{mn}}{(m+1)!}}\sum _{t=0}^{m}{\frac {1}{t+1}}-n\log 2+O\left({\frac {1}{2^{n}\,e^{2^{n}}}}\right)\right).\end{aligned}}}

The error term in the last equation is a rapidly decreasing function of n. As a result, the formula is well-suited for efficient computation of the constant to high precision.

Other interesting limits equaling Euler's constant are the antisymmetric limit:^[17]

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\lim _{s\to 1^{+}}\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{n^{s}}}-{\frac {1}{s^{n}}}\right)\\&=\lim _{s\to 1}\left(\zeta ($$s)-{\frac {1}{s-1}}\right)\\&=\lim _{s\to 0}{\frac {\zeta (1+s)+\zeta (1-s)}{2}}\end{aligned}}}

and the following formula, established in 1898 by de la Vallée-Poussin:

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\lim _{n\to \infty }{\frac {1}{n}}\,\sum _{k=1}^{n}\left(\left\lceil {\frac {n}{k}}\right\rceil -{\frac {n}{k}}\right)}$$

where ⌈ ⌉ are ceiling brackets. This formula indicates that when taking any positive integer n and dividing it by each positive integer k less than n, the average fraction by which the quotient n/k falls short of the next integer tends to γ (rather than 0.5) as n tends to infinity.

Closely related to this is the rational zeta series expression. By taking separately the first few terms of the series above, one obtains an estimate for the classical series limit:

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\lim _{n\to \infty }\left(\sum _{k=1}^{n}{\frac {1}{k}}-\log n-\sum _{m=2}^{\infty }{\frac {\zeta (m,n+1)}{m}}\right),}$$

where ζ(s, k) is the Hurwitz zeta function. The sum in this equation involves the harmonic numbers, H_n. Expanding some of the terms in the Hurwitz zeta function gives:

$${\displaystyle H_{n}=\log($$n)+\gamma +{\frac {1}{2n}}-{\frac {1}{12n^{2}}}+{\frac {1}{120n^{4}}}-\varepsilon ,} where 0 < ε < 1/252n⁶.

γ can also be expressed as follows where A is the Glaisher–Kinkelin constant:

$${\displaystyle \gamma =12\,\log($$A)-\log(2\pi )+{\frac {6}{\pi ^{2}}}\,\zeta '(2)}

γ can also be expressed as follows, which can be proven by expressing the zeta function as a Laurent series:

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\lim _{n\to \infty }\left(-n+\zeta \left({\frac {n+1}{n}}\right)\right)}$$

Relation to triangular numbers[edit]

Numerous formulations have been derived that express ${\displaystyle \gamma }$ in terms of sums and logarithms of triangular numbers.^{[18][19][20][21]} One of the earliest of these is a formula^[22][23] for the ${\displaystyle n}$th harmonic number attributed to Srinivasa Ramanujan where ${\displaystyle \gamma }$ is related to ${\displaystyle \textstyle \ln 2T_{k}}$ in a series that considers the powers of ${\displaystyle \textstyle {\frac {1}{T_{k}}}}$ (an earlier, less-generalizable proof^[24][25]byErnesto Cesàro gives the first two terms of the series, with an error term):

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=H_{u}-{\frac {1}{2}}\ln 2T_{u}-\sum _{k=1}^{v}{\frac {R($k)}{T_{u}^{k}}}-\Theta _{v}\,{\frac {R(v+1)}{T_{u}^{v+1}}}\end{aligned}}}

From Stirling's approximation^[18][26] follows a similar series:

${\displaystyle \gamma =\ln 2\pi -\sum _{k=2}^{n}{\frac {\zeta ($k)}{T_{k}}}}

The series of inverse triangular numbers also features in the study of the Basel problem^[27][28] posed by Pietro Mengoli. Mengoli proved that ${\displaystyle \textstyle \sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{2T_{k}}}=1}$, a result Jacob Bernoulli later used to estimate the valueof${\displaystyle \zeta ($2)} , placing it between ${\displaystyle 1}$ and ${\displaystyle \textstyle \sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {2}{2T_{k}}}=\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{T_{k}}}=2}$. This identity appears in a formula used by Bernhard Riemann to compute roots of the zeta function,^[29] where ${\displaystyle \gamma }$ is expressed in terms of the sum of roots ${\displaystyle \rho }$ plus the difference between Boya's expansion and the series of exact unit fractions ${\displaystyle \textstyle \sum _{k=1}^{n}{\frac {1}{T_{k}}}}$:

${\displaystyle \gamma -\ln 2=\ln 2\pi +\sum _{\rho }{\frac {2}{\rho }}-\sum _{k=1}^{n}{\frac {1}{T_{k}}}}$

Integrals[edit]

γ equals the value of a number of definite integrals:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=-\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-x}\log x\,dx\\&=-\int _{0}^{1}\log \left(\log {\frac {1}{x}}\right)dx\\&=\int _{0}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{e^{x}-1}}-{\frac {1}{x\cdot e^{x}}}\right)dx\\&=\int _{0}^{1}{\frac {1-e^{-x}}{x}}\,dx-\int _{1}^{\infty }{\frac {e^{-x}}{x}}\,dx\\&=\int _{0}^{1}\left({\frac {1}{\log x}}+{\frac {1}{1-x}}\right)dx\\&=\int _{0}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{1+x^{k}}}-e^{-x}\right){\frac {dx}{x}},\quad k>0\\&=2\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {e^{-x^{2}}-e^{-x}}{x}}\,dx,\\&=\log {\frac {\pi }{4}}-\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {\log x}{\cosh ^{2}x}}\,dx,\\&=\int _{0}^{1}H_{x}\,dx,\\&={\frac {1}{2}}+\int _{0}^{\infty }\log \left(1+{\frac {\log \left(1+{\frac {1}{t}}\right)^{2}}{4\pi ^{2}}}\right)dt\\&=1-\int _{0}^{1}\{1/x\}dx\end{aligned}}}$$ where H_x is the fractional harmonic number, and ${\displaystyle \{1/x\}}$ is the fractional partof${\displaystyle 1/x}$.

The third formula in the integral list can be proved in the following way:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&\int _{0}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{e^{x}-1}}-{\frac {1}{xe^{x}}}\right)dx=\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {e^{-x}+x-1}{x[e^{x}-1]}}dx=\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{x[e^{x}-1]}}\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}x^{m+1}}{(m+1)!}}dx\\[2pt]&=\int _{0}^{\infty }\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}x^{m}}{(m+1)![e^{x}-1]}}dx=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}x^{m}}{(m+1)![e^{x}-1]}}dx=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{(m+1)!}}\int _{0}^{\infty }{\frac {x^{m}}{e^{x}-1}}dx\\[2pt]&=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{(m+1)!}}m!\zeta (m+1)=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{m+1}}\zeta (m+1)=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{m+1}}\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{n^{m+1}}}=\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{m+1}}{\frac {1}{n^{m+1}}}\\[2pt]&=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\sum _{m=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{m+1}}{m+1}}{\frac {1}{n^{m+1}}}=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\left[{\frac {1}{n}}-\log \left(1+{\frac {1}{n}}\right)\right]=\gamma \end{aligned}}}$$

The integral on the second line of the equation stands for the Debye function value of +∞, which is m! ζ(m + 1).

Definite integrals in which γ appears include:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-x^{2}}\log x\,dx&=-{\frac {(\gamma +2\log 2){\sqrt {\pi }}}{4}}\\\int _{0}^{\infty }e^{-x}\log ^{2}x\,dx&=\gamma ^{2}+{\frac {\pi ^{2}}{6}}\end{aligned}}}$$

One can express γ using a special case of Hadjicostas's formula as a double integral^[9][30] with equivalent series:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\int _{0}^{1}\int _{0}^{1}{\frac {x-1}{(1-xy)\log xy}}\,dx\,dy\\&=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{n}}-\log {\frac {n+1}{n}}\right).\end{aligned}}}$$

An interesting comparison by Sondow^[30] is the double integral and alternating series

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\log {\frac {4}{\pi }}&=\int _{0}^{1}\int _{0}^{1}{\frac {x-1}{(1+xy)\log xy}}\,dx\,dy\\&=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\left((-1)^{n-1}\left({\frac {1}{n}}-\log {\frac {n+1}{n}}\right)\right).\end{aligned}}}$$

It shows that log 4/π may be thought of as an "alternating Euler constant".

The two constants are also related by the pair of series^[31]

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {N_{1}($$n)+N_{0}(n)}{2n(2n+1)}}\\\log {\frac {4}{\pi }}&=\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {N_{1}(n)-N_{0}(n)}{2n(2n+1)}},\end{aligned}}}

where N₁(n) and N₀(n) are the number of 1s and 0s, respectively, in the base 2 expansion of n.

We also have Catalan's 1875 integral^[32]

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\int _{0}^{1}\left({\frac {1}{1+x}}\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }x^{2^{n}-1}\right)\,dx.}$$

Series expansions[edit]

In general,

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\lim _{n\to \infty }\left({\frac {1}{1}}+{\frac {1}{2}}+{\frac {1}{3}}+\ldots +{\frac {1}{n}}-\log(n+\alpha )\right)\equiv \lim _{n\to \infty }\gamma _{n}(\alpha )}$$

for any α > −n. However, the rate of convergence of this expansion depends significantly on α. In particular, γ_n(1/2) exhibits much more rapid convergence than the conventional expansion γ_n(0).^[33][34] This is because

$${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{2(n+1)}}<\gamma _{n}(0)-\gamma <{\frac {1}{2n}},}$$

while

$${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{24(n+1)^{2}}}<\gamma _{n}(1/2)-\gamma <{\frac {1}{24n^{2}}}.}$$

Even so, there exist other series expansions which converge more rapidly than this; some of these are discussed below.

Euler showed that the following infinite series approaches γ: $${\displaystyle \gamma =\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{k}}-\log \left(1+{\frac {1}{k}}\right)\right).}$$

The series for γ is equivalent to a series Nielsen found in 1897:^[15][35]

$${\displaystyle \gamma =1-\sum _{k=2}^{\infty }(-1)^{k}{\frac {\left\lfloor \log _{2}k\right\rfloor }{k+1}}.}$$

In 1910, Vacca found the closely related series^{[36][37][38][39][40][15][41]}

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=\sum _{k=2}^{\infty }(-1)^{k}{\frac {\left\lfloor \log _{2}k\right\rfloor }{k}}\\[5pt]&={\tfrac {1}{2}}-{\tfrac {1}{3}}+2\left({\tfrac {1}{4}}-{\tfrac {1}{5}}+{\tfrac {1}{6}}-{\tfrac {1}{7}}\right)+3\left({\tfrac {1}{8}}-{\tfrac {1}{9}}+{\tfrac {1}{10}}-{\tfrac {1}{11}}+\cdots -{\tfrac {1}{15}}\right)+\cdots ,\end{aligned}}}$$

where log₂ is the logarithm to base 2 and ⌊ ⌋ is the floor function.

In 1926 he found a second series:

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma +\zeta ($$2)&=\sum _{k=2}^{\infty }\left({\frac {1}{\left\lfloor {\sqrt {k}}\right\rfloor ^{2}}}-{\frac {1}{k}}\right)\\[5pt]&=\sum _{k=2}^{\infty }{\frac {k-\left\lfloor {\sqrt {k}}\right\rfloor ^{2}}{k\left\lfloor {\sqrt {k}}\right\rfloor ^{2}}}\\[5pt]&={\frac {1}{2}}+{\frac {2}{3}}+{\frac {1}{2^{2}}}\sum _{k=1}^{2\cdot 2}{\frac {k}{k+2^{2}}}+{\frac {1}{3^{2}}}\sum _{k=1}^{3\cdot 2}{\frac {k}{k+3^{2}}}+\cdots \end{aligned}}}

From the Malmsten–Kummer expansion for the logarithm of the gamma function^[42] we get:

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\log \pi -4\log \left(\Gamma ({\tfrac {3}{4}})\right)+{\frac {4}{\pi }}\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }(-1)^{k+1}{\frac {\log(2k+1)}{2k+1}}.}$$

An important expansion for Euler's constant is due to Fontana and Mascheroni

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {|G_{n}|}{n}}={\frac {1}{2}}+{\frac {1}{24}}+{\frac {1}{72}}+{\frac {19}{2880}}+{\frac {3}{800}}+\cdots ,}$$ where G_n are Gregory coefficients.^[15][41][43] This series is the special case k = 1 of the expansions

$${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}\gamma &=H_{k-1}-\log k+\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(n-1)!|G_{n}|}{k(k+1)\cdots (k+n-1)}}&&\\&=H_{k-1}-\log k+{\frac {1}{2k}}+{\frac {1}{12k(k+1)}}+{\frac {1}{12k(k+1)(k+2)}}+{\frac {19}{120k(k+1)(k+2)(k+3)}}+\cdots &&\end{aligned}}}$$

convergent for k = 1, 2, ...

A similar series with the Cauchy numbers of the second kind C_nis^[41][44]

$${\displaystyle \gamma =1-\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {C_{n}}{n\,(n+1)!}}=1-{\frac {1}{4}}-{\frac {5}{72}}-{\frac {1}{32}}-{\frac {251}{14400}}-{\frac {19}{1728}}-\ldots }$$

Blagouchine (2018) found an interesting generalisation of the Fontana–Mascheroni series

$${\displaystyle \gamma =\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }{\frac {(-1)^{n+1}}{2n}}{\Big \{}\psi _{n}($$a)+\psi _{n}{\Big (}-{\frac {a}{1+a}}{\Big )}{\Big \}},\quad a>-1}