Systems of Partial Differential Equations for Hypergeometric Functions of Matrix Argument

Many distributions in multivariate analysis can be expressed in a form involving hypergeometric functionspF qof matrix argument e.g. the noncentral Wishart (0F 1) and the noncentral multivariate F(1F 1). For an exposition of distributions in this form see James [9]. The hypergeometric functionpF qhas been defined by Constantine [1] as the power series representation \begin{equation*}\tag{1.1} _pF_q(a_1,\cdots, a_p; b_1,\cdots, b_q; R) = \sum^\infty_{k=0} \sum_\kappa \frac{(a_1)_\kappa\cdots(a_p)_\kappa}{(b_1)_\kappa\cdots (b_q)_\kappa} \frac{C_\kappa (R)}{k!}\end{equation*} where a1,⋯, ap, b1,⋯, bqare real or complex constants,$(a)_\kappa = \mathbf{prod}^m_{i=1}(a - \frac{1}{2}(i - 1))_{k_i},\quad (a)_n = a(a + 1)\cdots (a + n - 1)$and Cκ(R) is the zonal polynomial of the m × m symmetric matrix R corresponding to the partition κ = (k1, k2,⋯, km), k1≥ k2≥ ⋯ ≥ km, of the integer k into not more than m parts. The functions defined by (1.1) are identical with the hypergeometric functions defined by Herz [5] by means of Laplace and inverse Laplace transforms. For a detailed discussion of hypergeometric functions and zonal polynomials, the reader is referred to the papers [1] of Constantine and [7], [8], [9] of James. From a practical point of view, however, the series (1.1) may not be of great value. Although computer programs have been developed for calculating zonal polynomials up to quite high order, the series (1.1) may converge very slowly. It appears that some asymptotic expansions for such functions must be obtained. It is well known that asymptotic expansions for a function can in many cases be derived using a differential equation satisfied by the function (see e.g. Erdelyi [4]), and so, with this in mind, a study of differential equations satisfied by certain hypergeometric functions certainly seems justified. In this paper a conjecture due to A. G. Constantine is verified i.e. it is shown that the function \begin{equation*}\tag{1.2} _2F_1(a, b; c; R) = \sum^\infty_{k=0} \sum_\kappa \frac{(a)_\kappa(b)_\kappa}{(c)_\kappa} \frac{C_\kappa(R)}{K!}\end{equation*} satisfies the system of partial differential equations \begin{align*} \tag{1.3} R_i(1 &- R_i)\partial^2F/\partial R_i^2 + \{ c - \frac{1}{2}(m - 1) - (a + b + 1 - \frac{1}{2}(m - 1))R_i \\ &+\frac{1}{2} \sum^m_{j=1,j\neq i}\lbrack R_i(1 - R_i)/(R_i - R_j) \rbrack\}\partial F/\partial R_i \\ &-\frac{1}{2} \sum^m_{j=1,j\neq i} \lbrack R_j(1 - R_j)/(R_i - R_j) \rbrack\partial F/\partial R_j = abF \q