Generalized Hypergeometric Function - Terminology

Terminology

When all the terms of the series are defined and it has a non-zero radius of convergence, then the series defines an analytic function. Such a function, and its analytic continuations, is called the hypergeometric function.

The case when the radius of convergence is 0 yields many interesting series in mathematics, for example the incomplete gamma function has the asymptotic expansion

which could be written za−1e−z 2F0(1−a,1;;−z−1). However, the use of the term hypergeometric series is usually restricted to the case where the series defines an actual analytic function.

The ordinary hypergeometric series should not be confused with the basic hypergeometric series, which, despite its name, is a rather more complicated and recondite series. The "basic" series is the q-analog of the ordinary hypergeometric series. There are several such generalizations of the ordinary hypergeometric series, including the ones coming from zonal spherical functions on Riemannian symmetric spaces.

The series without the factor of n! in the denominator (summed over all integers n, including negative) is called the bilateral hypergeometric series.

Read more about this topic:  Generalized Hypergeometric Function