MELLIN TRANSFORM METHODS APPLIED TO INTEGRAL EVALUATION - TAYLOR-SERIES AND ASYMPTOTIC APPROXIMATIONS

Mellin transform methods have been used to obtain Taylor series or asy mptotic approximations to definite integrals whose integrands consist of the product of two generalized hypergeometric functions. This appro ach has proved extremely useful in many applied physics problems inclu ding the analysis of electromagnetic propagation in a turbulent medium . The main result in this article is a generalization of the method to integrands containing the product of an arbitrary number of hypergeom etric functions providing a very powerful and general technique for in tegral evaluation with many applications in physics.