A certain class of incomplete elliptic integrals and associated definite integrals

In many seemingly diverse physical contexts ( including, for example, certain radiation field problems, studies of crystallographic minimal surfaces, the theory of scattering of acoustic or electromagnetic waves by means of an elliptic disk, studies of elliptical crack problems in fracture mechanics, and so on), a remarkably large number of general families of elliptic-type integrals, and indeed also many definite integrals of such families with respect to their modulus ( or complementary modulus), are known to arise naturally. Motivated essentially by these and many other potential avenues of their applications, we present here a systematic account of the theory of a certain family of incomplete elliptic integrals in a unified and generalized manner. By means of the familiar Riemann-Liouville fractional differintegral operators, we obtain several explicit hypergeometric representations and apply these representations with a view to deriving various associated definite integrals, not only with respect to the modulus ( or complementary modulus), but also with respect to the amplitude of the incomplete elliptic integrals involved therein. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.