Contiguous Relations and Creative Telescoping

This article presents an algorithmic theory of contiguous relations. Contiguous relations, first studied by Gauß, are a fundamental concept within the theory of hypergeometric series. In contrast to Takayama’s approach, which for elimination uses non-commutative Gröbner bases, our framework is based on parameterized telescoping and can be viewed as an extension of Zeilberger’s creative telescoping paradigm based on Gosper’s algorithm. The wide range of applications include elementary algorithmic explanations of the existence of classical formulas for non- terminating hypergeometric series such as Gauß, Pfaff-Saalschütz, or Dixon summation. The method can be used to derive new theorems, like a non-terminating extension of a classical recurrence established by Wilson between terminating 4F3-series. Moreover, our setting helps to explain the non-minimal order phenomenon of Zeilberger’s algorithm. To appear.