scipy.special.spence

scipy.special.spence(z) = <ufunc 'spence'>

Spence’s function, also known as the dilogarithm. It is defined to be

\[\int_0^z \frac{\log(t)}{1 - t}dt\]

for complex \(z\), where the contour of integration is taken to avoid the branch cut of the logarithm. Spence’s function is analytic everywhere except the negative real axis where it has a branch cut.

Note that there is a different convention which defines Spence’s function by the integral

\[-\int_0^z \frac{\log(1 - t)}{t}dt;\]

this is our spence(1 - z).