Algebraic results for certain values of the Jacobi theta-constant $\theta_3(\tau)$

Abstract

In its most elaborate form, the Jacobi theta function is defined for two complex variables $z$ and τ by $\theta (z|\tau ) =\sum _{\nu =-\infty }^{\infty } e^{\pi i\nu ^2\tau + 2\pi i\nu z}$, which converges for all complex number $z$, and τ in the upper half-plane. The special case $$\theta _3(\tau ):=\theta (0|\tau )= 1+2\sum _{\nu =1}^{\infty } e^{\pi i\nu ^2 \tau }$$ is called a Jacobi theta-constant or Thetanullwert of the Jacobi theta function $\theta (z|\tau )$. In this paper, we prove the algebraic independence results for the values of the Jacobi theta-constant $\theta _3(\tau )$. For example, the three values $\theta _3(\tau )$, $\theta _3(n\tau )$, and $D\theta _3(\tau )$ are algebraically independent over $\mathbb{Q}$ for any τ such that $q=e^{\pi i\tau }$ is an algebraic number, where $n\geq 2$ is an integer and $D:=(\pi i)^{-1}{d}/{d\tau }$ is a differential operator. This generalizes a result of the first author, who proved the algebraic independence of the two values $\theta _3(\tau )$ and $\theta _3(2^m\tau )$ for $m\geq 1$. As an application of our main theorem, the algebraic dependence over $\mathbb{Q}$ of the three values $\theta _3(\ell \tau )$, $\theta _3(m\tau )$, and $\theta _3(n\tau )$ for integers $\ell ,m,n\geq 1$ is also presented.