Some generalizations of the Apostol-Genocchi polynomials and the Stirling numbers of the second kind

Recently, the authors introduced some generalizations of the Apostol-Bernoulli polynomials and the Apostol-Euler polynomials (see [Q.-M. Luo, H.M. Srivastava, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 308 (2005) 290-302] and [Q.-M. Luo, Taiwanese J. Math. 10 (2006) 917-925]). The main object of this paper is to investigate an analogous generalization of the Genocchi polynomials of higher order, that is, the so-called Apostol-Genocchi polynomials of higher order. For these generalized Apostol-Genocchi polynomials, we establish several elementary properties, provide some explicit relationships with the Apostol-Bernoulli polynomials and the Apostol-Euler polynomials, and derive various explicit series representations in terms of the Gaussian hypergeometric function and the Hurwitz (or generalized) zeta function. We also deduce their special cases and applications which are shown here to lead to the corresponding results for the Genocchi and Euler polynomials of higher order. By introducing an analogue of the Stirling numbers of the second kind, that is, the so-called λ-Stirling numbers of the second kind, we derive some basic properties and formulas and consider some interesting applications to the family of the Apostol type polynomials. Furthermore, we also correct an error in a previous paper [Q.-M. Luo, H.M. Srivastava, Comput. Math. Appl. 51 (2006) 631-642] and pose two open problems on the subject of our investigation.