Iterated Eisenstein summation in weight two Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
In the displayed iterated order, with the sum evaluated first, . The cosecant partial-fraction identity gives the positive- contribution ; negative gives the same contribution. Including the term yields . The full lattice series does not have absolute convergence, so this order must not be replaced by arbitrary rearrangement.
Put and . Separate the terms in the lattice Eisenstein series. Differentiating the cosecant partial-fraction identity times gives, for ,
The initial identity is ; differentiation accounts for the factorial and the sign. Pair and and collect the products . Absolute convergence of the lattice sum for , and local uniform convergence of the resulting power series, justify these operations. Thus the requested Fourier expansions are
Here , and the Bernoulli numbers have convention . The second formula uses Euler's even-value identity for the Riemann zeta function, . In particular and .
We need the rational, rather than merely complex, version of the polynomial ring of level-one modular forms. Recall how the valence formula for the modular group supplies its proof. For a nonzero weight- modular form, with ,
Integrate around a truncated standard fundamental domain of the modular group, indenting around boundary zeros. The paired vertical sides cancel by translation; pair the two halves of the circular edge using . The logarithmic derivative of supplies , while the top edge supplies . The half-disc and third-disc at the two elliptic points account for the fractions . The argument principle then gives the formula. All orders in it are nonnegative for a holomorphic modular form. It follows that negative weights have no forms, , and : a weight-two form vanishes at , contributing at least .
Define . It is a weight-twelve cusp form and its expansion starts with . The valence formula for the modular group forces its order at infinity to be exactly one and leaves no interior zeros. Thus division by identifies with . Every nonnegative even has a monomial of weight : solve , taking when is even and when it is odd and at least three. Subtract the constant coefficient of a modular form times such a monomial and divide by . Induction on weight proves generation by .
If the original Fourier coefficients are rational, every step preserves rationality: both generators and have rational expansions, and formal division by does too. This proves the rational structure of level-one modular forms. Write with and . Rescaling gives
The Bernoulli number formula above makes each zeta ratio rational: its powers of cancel precisely because the weights agree. This proves the required rational coefficients for the unnormalized lattice Eisenstein sums.
Finally because the quotient weights are negative, and because . In each of these weights a form is determined by its constant coefficient. The indicated monomials have that coefficient equal to one, so
The displayed definition uses iterated Eisenstein summation in weight two: the sum in is evaluated before the sum in , with the single term omitted. This order is essential. The two-dimensional lattice series does not have absolute convergence, so arbitrary rearrangement would not be justified.
For noninteger , the cosecant partial-fraction identity is
For completeness, apply the residue theorem to on squares with large half-integer sides. The cotangent is bounded on the contours and the integral is . Its residues at the integers are and its residue at is , proving the formula. If , the geometric-series expression , differentiated termwise, gives the cotangent partial-fraction Fourier kernel
Put with in the complex upper half-plane. For positive , this gives . Negative gives the same value, by replacing with in its inner sum. The row is , by the Basel problem. The resulting series in does have absolute convergence, locally uniformly in , so collecting the coefficient at is legitimate:
The coefficient is the sum-of-divisors function, since runs over the positive divisors of . Thus
There is no conflict with vanishing of weight-two level-one modular forms: the Eisenstein series of weight two has an anomalous transformation term, so it is not a weight-two modular form.