Compute $\lim\limits_{n\to\infty} \prod\limits_2^n \left(1-\frac1{k^3}\right)$

Question

I've just worked out the limit $\lim\limits_{n\to\infty} \prod\limits_{2}^{n} \left(1-\frac{1}{k^2}\right)$ that is simply solved, and the result is $\frac{1}{2}$. After that, I thought of calculating $\lim\limits_{n\to\infty} \prod\limits_{2}^{n} \left(1-\frac{1}{k^3}\right)$, but I don't know how to do it. According to W|A, the result is pretty nice, but I don't see how W|A gets that. (See here.) Is there any easy way to get the answer?

Answer 1

Since $$ 1-\frac1{k^3}=\frac{(k-1)(k+\frac12+\frac{\sqrt3}2i)(k+\frac12-\frac{\sqrt3}2i)}{k^3} $$ and $$ k+a=\frac{\Gamma(k+a+1)}{\Gamma(k+a)}, $$ every term in the product is a ratio of the Gamma functions. Also there is a formula $$ \Gamma \left(\frac{1}{2}-i y\right) \Gamma \left(\frac{1}{2}+i y\right)= \pi \text{sech}\pi y. $$ In particular for the end terms of the product $$\frac{1}{\Gamma \left(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}\right) \Gamma \left(\frac{1}{2}-\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}\right)}=\frac{\cosh \frac{\sqrt{3} \pi }{2}}{\pi }. $$ Multiplying those ratios and canceling out the same terms leads to a formula for the partial product: $$ \prod _{k=2}^n \left(1-\frac{1}{k^3}\right)= \frac{\cosh \frac{\sqrt{3} \pi }{2} \Gamma \left(n-\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right) \Gamma \left(n+\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right)}{3 \pi n^3 \Gamma^2 (n)}. $$ Taking the limit $n\to\infty$ gives the desired result.

Answer 2

The last step of Andrew getting \begin{align}\lim_{n\to \infty}\prod _{k=2}^n \left(1-\frac{1}{k^3}\right)= \frac{\cosh \frac{\sqrt{3} \pi }{2} \Gamma \left(n-\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right) \Gamma \left(n+\frac{i \sqrt{3}}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right)}{3 \pi n^3 \Gamma^2 (n)}\end{align} was a bit ambigous.

using another method, note that \begin{align*}\Gamma(z)=\frac{1}{z e^{\gamma z}}\prod_{k=1}^{\infty}\frac{k e^{\frac{z}{k}}}{z+k} \end{align*} holds for all complex number $z$ except negative integer, we obtain

\begin{align}g(z)=\prod_{k=1}^{\infty} (1+\frac{z}{k})e^{\frac{-z}{k}}=\frac{1}{z\Gamma(z)e^{\gamma z}}\end{align}

Thus \begin{align} g(\omega)g(\omega^2)=\prod_{k=1}^{\infty}\frac{k^2+k+1}{k^2}e^{-\frac{1}{k}}=\frac{1}{\Gamma(\omega)\Gamma(\omega^2) e^{\gamma}}=\frac{3}{e}\prod_{k=2}^{\infty}\frac{k^2+k+1}{k^2}e^{-\frac{1}{k}} \end{align} where $-\omega$ is the root of $x^3=1$

From \begin{align} \prod_{k=2}^{\infty}(1-\frac{1}{k})e^{\frac{1}{k}}=\lim_{n\to \infty}\frac{1}{n} e^{\frac{1}{2}+\cdots+\frac{1}{n}}=e^{\gamma -1} \end{align}

Thus \begin{align} \prod_{k=2}^{\infty}\left(1-\frac{1}{k^3}\right)=\prod_{k=2}^{\infty}\frac{k^2+k+1}{k^2}e^{-\frac{1}{k}}\prod_{k=2}^{\infty}(1-\frac{1}{k})e^{\frac{1}{k}}=\frac{1}{3\Gamma(\omega)\Gamma(\omega^2)} \end{align} and hence the result

By the similar way we may get $\prod_{k=2}^{\infty}(1-\frac{1}{k^n})$