Discrete Hyperbolic Secant Distributions

Abstract

We introduce a family of discrete hyperbolic secant distributions on $\mathbb{Z}$, whose normalizing constants arise from series values calculated by Ramanujan and are expressed in terms of Gau\ss'constant $G=\varpi/\pi$, where $\varpi=\Gamma^2(1/4)/(2\sqrt{2\pi})$ is the lemniscate constant. Using the elliptic lambda-star function $\lambda^*$, we construct scaled versions of these distributions parametrized by $\sqrt{r}$ and $1/\sqrt{r}$ for $r \in \mathbb{N}$. For the first such distribution, we compute the moments up to the eighth degree in closed form via Poisson summation, exploiting that the hyperbolic secant is a fixed point of the $-2\pi i$-Fourier transform. As a byproduct, we obtain closed-form values for series of odd powers of the hyperbolic secant up to the ninth degree, e.\,g.\ $\sum_{k \in \mathbb{Z}} \operatorname{sech}^3(\pi k) = (G^3+G)/\sqrt{2}$, and reinterpret several classical Ramanujan series probabilistically. Finally, we apply our results to evaluate a contour integral, on the critical line, of the product of Dirichlet's beta, gamma, and Riemann zeta functions.