Iterated residues and multiple Bernoulli polynomials

Abstract

We describe an effective method for calculating certain infinite sums, generalizations of the classical Bernoulli polynomials. As shown by Edward Witten in his papers on two-dimensional gauge theories, the correlation functions of two-dimensional topological Yang-Mills theory (or intersection numbers on moduli spaces of flat connections) can be given in the form of such infinite sums. Thus, in particular, our results give finite expressions for these correlation functions in the case of arbitrary compact structure groups G.