Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/ib/paper-4/13e/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ib Paper 4 13E a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For a closed piecewise smooth contour in a domain, null-homologous there and avoiding the poles of a meromorphic function , the residue theorem iswhere is the winding number and the sum runs over enclosed poles with their indices. Suppose now is meromorphic and has neither zeros nor poles on . At a zero or pole , write with holomorphic and nonzero, where for a zero and for a pole. Thenso its residue is . Substituting into the residue theorem and changing variables along the image contour gives the argument principle:For a positively oriented simple boundary, this is the number of zeros minus poles inside, counted with multiplicity. The winding-number form also applies to self-intersecting image paths.
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