§19.8 Quadratic Transformations
Contents
- §19.8(i) Gauss’s Arithmetic-Geometric Mean (AGM)
- §19.8(ii) Landen Transformations
- §19.8(iii) Gauss Transformation
§19.8(i) Gauss’s Arithmetic-Geometric Mean (AGM)
When
and
are positive numbers, define
As
,
and
converge to a common limit
called the AGM (Arithmetic-Geometric Mean) of
and
. By
symmetry in
and
we may assume
and define
Then
showing that the convergence of
to 0 and of
and
to
is quadratic in each case.
The AGM has the integral representations
The first of these shows that
The AGM appears in

and in

where
,
,
,
, and
Again,
and
converge quadratically to
and 0, respectively, and
converges to 0 faster than quadratically. If
, then the Cauchy principal value is

where (19.8.8) still applies, but with
§19.8(ii) Landen Transformations
¶ Descending Landen Transformation
Let

(Note that
and
imply
and
, and also that
implies
.)
Then
where
¶ Ascending Landen Transformation
Let
(Note that
and
imply
and
.) Then
§19.8(iii) Gauss Transformation
We consider only the descending Gauss transformation because its (ascending)
inverse moves
closer to the singularity at
. Let
(Note that
and
imply
and
, and also that
implies
, thus
preserving completeness.) Then
where
If
, then
is pure imaginary.

