On Kronecker's limit formula and the hypergeometric function.

Overview & Synopsis

The Kronecker limit formula for a positive definite binary quadratic form or the Dedekind zeta-function of an imaginary quadratic field is quite well-known and there exists an enormous amount of literature pertaining to its proof and applications. Here we give a different kind of proof depending on the hypergeometric transform. The idea goes back to Koshilyakov and we adopted it in this note to give a new derivation of the formula. Here the connection formula for the hypergeometric function plays an essential role.