A second addition formula for continuous q-ultraspherical polynomials

This paper provides the details of Remark 5.4 in the author’s paper “Askey-Wilson polynomials as zonal spherical functions on the SU(2) quantum group”, SIAM J. Math. Anal. 24 (1993), 795–813. In formula (5.9) of the 1993 paper a two-parameter class of Askey-Wilson polynomials was expanded as a finite Fourier series with a product of two 3phi2’s as Fourier coefficients. The proof given there used the quantum group interpretation. Here this identity will be generalized to a 3-parameter class of Askey-Wilson polynomials being expanded in terms of continuous q-ultraspherical polynomials with a product of two 2phi2’s as coefficients, and an analytic proof will be given for it. Then Gegenbauer’s addition formula for ultraspherical polynomials will be obtained as a limit case. This q-analogue of Gegenbauer’s addition formula is quite different from the addition formula for continuous q-ultraspherical polynomials obtained by Rahman and Verma in 1986. Furthermore, the functions occurring as factors in the expansion coefficents will be interpreted as a special case of a system of biorthogonal rational functions with respect to the Askey-Roy q-beta measure. A degenerate case of this biorthogonality are Pastro’s biorthogonal polynomials associated with the Stieltjes-Wigert polynomials.