A Characterization of Umbral Calculus Inspired by Fractional Sums

TL;DR

This paper uses analytic function theory and Fourier analysis to characterize classical umbral calculus, focusing on Bernoulli numbers and fractional sums, addressing an open question and synthesizing analysis results.

Contribution

It provides a new characterization of umbral calculus through analytic methods, specifically targeting Bernoulli numbers and fractional sums, and answers an open question from 2005.

Findings

Characterization of umbral calculus via analytic functions

Resolution of an open question on fractional sums

Synthesis of common analysis results related to Bernoulli numbers

Abstract

We will use analytic function theory and Fourier analysis to establish a characterization for some classical umbral calculus, which will focus on the generalization of the evaluation function. Although we cannot cover all the umbral calculus people care about, the part about Bernoulli numbers can still answer an open question about fractional sums raised by M\"uller and Schleicher in 2005 and synthesize some common analysis results. We will only develop the results which are sufficient to serve the purpose of this article, but at the same time, we will briefly mention some possible extensions.