An extension of the method of brackets. Part 1

Abstract

The method of brackets is an efficient method for the evaluation of alarge class of definite integrals on the half-line. It is based on a small collection of rules, some of which are heuristic. The extension discussed here is based on the concepts of null and divergent series. These are formal representations of functions, whose coefficients an have meromorphic representations for n ∈ ℂ, but might vanish or blow up when n ∈ ℕ. These ideas are illustrated with the evaluation of a variety of entries from the classical table of integrals by Gradshteyn and Ryzhik.