On totally positive sequences and functions

Let a>0 be a fixed number. A function f:R→R is said to be a-shift-generating (a-SG) if for every x∈R, is a totally positive sequence and it does not coincide with a sequence of the form , where A⩾0 and λ>0. In this paper, we describe all a-SG functions and obtain a new characterization of totally positive functions in the terms of a-SG functions. In addition, using characteristic properties of a-SG functions, we generalize the famous Jacobian identity in theory of elliptic functions.