In my previous post on Euler sums, we evaluated sums containing $H_n$ and $H_n^{(2)}$. In this post, we’ll derive some further results using the integral $\int_0^x \frac{\log^3(1-t)}{t}dt$. Our starting point is the following generating function identity: $$ \sum_{n=1}^\infty (H_n)^2 x^n = \frac{\log^2(1-x)+\text{Li}_2(x)}{1-x} ,\quad -1\leq x < 1 $$ This can derived by plugging $H_n = \int_0^1\frac{1-t^n}{1-t}dt$ and interchanging the sum and the integral. We can rewrite the above equation using the fact that $\sum_{n=1}^\infty H_n^{(2)} x^n = \frac{\text{Li}_2(x)}{1-x}$. $$ \sum_{n=1}^\infty (H_n)^2 x^n = \frac{\log^2(1-x)}{1-x} + \sum_{n=1}^\infty H_n^{(2)} x^n , \quad -1\leq x < 1 \quad \color{blue}{\cdots (1)} $$
1. Evaluation of $\int_0^x \frac{\log^n(1-t)}{t}dt$
In this section, we will derive a formula for the integral $\int_0^x \frac{\log^n(1-t)}{t}dt$ where $n$ is a positive integer. First, we’ll consider the case when $0\leq x < 1$. We have: $$ \begin{aligned} \int_0^x \frac{\log^n (1-t)}{t}dt &= \int_0^{-\log(1-x)} \frac{t^n e^{-t}}{1-e^{-t}}dt \quad (t\mapsto 1-e^{-t}) \\ &= \sum_{j=1}^\infty \int_0^{-\log(1-x)}t^n e^{-jt} dt \\ &= -\sum_{j=1}^\infty \left[e^{-jt}\sum_{i=0}^n \frac{(-1)^{n-i}\log^{n-i}(1-x)}{j^{i+1}}n^{\underline{i}} \right]_0^{-\log(1-x)} \\ &= – \sum_{j=1}^\infty \left( (1-x)^j \sum_{i=0}^n \frac{(-1)^{n-i}\log^{n-i}(1-x)}{j^{i+1}}n^{\underline{i}}-\frac{n!}{j^{n+1}} \right) \\ &= n! \zeta(n+1) + \sum_{i=0}^n (-1)^{n-i+1} n^{\underline{i}}\log^{n-i}(1-x) \text{Li}_{i+1}(1-x) \\ &\quad \color{blue}{\cdots (2)} \end{aligned} $$
A similar calculation shows that for $-1\leq x < 0$, we have: $$ \begin{aligned} \int_x^0 \frac{\log^n(1-t)}{t}dt &= -\frac{\log^{n+1}(1-x)}{n+1} – n! \zeta(n+1) + \sum_{i=0}^{n} n^{\underline{i}}\log^{n-i}(1-x)\text{Li}_{i+1}\left(\frac{1}{1-x}\right) \\ &\quad \color{blue}{\cdots (3)} \end{aligned} $$
2. Sums with $(H_n)^2$
We can divide equation (1) by $x$ and integrate both sides to get some interesting results. $$ \begin{aligned} \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{(H_n)^2}{n}x^n &= -\frac{\log^3(1-x)}{3}-\log(1-x)\text{Li}_2(x)+\text{Li}_3(x), \quad -1\leq x < 1\quad \color{blue}{\cdots (4)} \\ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{(H_n)^2}{n^2}x^n &= \text{Li}_4(x) + \frac{\text{Li}_2^2(x)}{2}-\frac{1}{3}\int_0^x \frac{\log^3(1-t)}{t}dt, \quad -1\leq x \leq 1\quad \color{blue}{\cdots (5)} \end{aligned} $$ Equation (4) was derived using results from section 4 of this post.
One can now plug in $x=-1$ in equation (5) to get: $$ \boxed{\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{(H_n)^2}{n^2}(-1)^{n+1} = \frac{41\pi^4}{1440} + \frac{\pi^2 \log^2(2)}{12}-\frac{\log^4(2)}{12}-\frac{7}{4}\log(3)\zeta(3)-2\text{Li}_4\left(\frac{1}{2}\right)} $$ Of course, equation (3) was used to evaluate $\int_{-1}^0 \frac{\log^3(1-t)}{t}dt$.