Series identity of Laguerre polynomials

224 Views Asked by At

This came up in the computation of an ensemble average in quantum mechanics. According to Mathematica, we have the curious identity \begin{equation} \sum_{n=0}^\infty \exp(-bn)L_n(2a) = \frac{\exp\left(b+\frac{2a}{1-e^b}\right)}{e^b-1} \end{equation} for real $a,b$ and $b \neq 0$. How would one prove this? I have been unable to find a reference for this identity. I would conjecture that this is somehow related to the generating function just by its form, but I am not sure.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On BEST ANSWER

The generating polynomial of Laguerre functions is $$\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}t^n L_n(x) = \dfrac{\exp\left(-\dfrac{tx}{1-t}\right)}{1-t}$$