Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-2-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/3/b/solution
Past exam of the differential equations 2 course of the University of Oxford 2015 3 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Take . A root on the smaller scale has , giving . Put . Successive coefficients give and , hence . The real root is thereforeThe other dominant balance is between the cubic and linear terms, requiring . Set ; the equation becomes . At the two nonzero roots are . With , the first correction satisfies , so and . ThusThe limiting roots in both rescalings are simple, so the implicit function theorem justifies these regular expansions in their respective small parameters. The fractional powers in the original variable are a fractional-power root expansion. The real derivative is strictly positive; the cubic therefore has exactly one real root. Its other roots are the displayed complex conjugate pair, accounting for all three roots. Their leading real corrections sum to , as required by the absence of a quadratic coefficient.
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