# Limit of infinite series involving harmonic numbers

The $k^{th}$ harmonic number is given as $$H_{k} = \sum_{i=1}^{k} \frac{1}{i}$$

I am interested in the following series: $$\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{\left(H_{k} \right)^{-k}}{k!} \tag{1}$$

and for some real positive (possibly integer) $\lambda$: $$\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{\lambda^k \left(H_{k} \right)^{-k}}{k!} \tag{2}$$

According to Wolfram alpha, $\left( 1 \right)$ is convergent to some expression, which (taking terms in the sum), is something like $1 + \frac{2}{9} + \frac{36}{11^3} + ...$ , while $\left( 2 \right)$ also appears to converge for some $\lambda \in \mathbb{N}$ that I have tried.

What I want for Christmas is to know how to determine the limit of the sum in $\left( 2 \right)$ in terms of $\lambda$, or even an upper bound. As a starting point, I tried to work out the analytic limit of the sum in $\left( 1 \right)$ but failed.

This is similar to other questions 1,2, except with the factorial of $k$ and not quite using the generalised harmonic numbers $\left( H_{k,n} \ne {\left(H_{k}\right)}^{n} \right)$

• I would not expect a nice closed form. We can deal with fixed powers of the harmonic numbers in the coefficients, hardly we can do the same with $H_k^k$. Jun 9, 2015 at 12:52
• Thanks - you are probably right, but I figured I would ask anyway. Jun 9, 2015 at 13:01
• Series (2) converges for all real (even complex) $\lambda$. Its sum is bounded in modulus by $e^{|\lambda|}$. Jun 9, 2015 at 13:03