Diagonals of rational functions, pullbacked 2F1 hypergeometric functions and modular forms (unabrigded version)

Abstract: We recall that diagonals of rational functions naturally occur in lattice statistical mechanics and enumerative combinatorics. We find that a seven-parameter rational function of three variables with a numerator equal to one (reciprocal of a polynomial of degree two at most) can be expressed as a pullbacked 2F1 hypergeometric function. This result can be seen as the simplest non-trivial family of diagonals of rational functions. We focus on some subcases such that the diagonals of the corresponding rational functions can be written as a pullbacked 2F1 hypergeometric function with two possible rational functions pullbacks algebraically related by modular equations, thus showing explicitely that the diagonal is a modular form. We then generalise this result to eight, nine and ten parameters families adding some selected cubic terms at the denominator of the rational function defining the diagonal. We finally show that each of these previous rational functions yields an infinite number of rational functions whose diagonals are also pullbacked 2F1 hypergeometric functions and modular forms.