Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/ii/paper-3/31a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2011 ii Paper 3 31A Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
At a simple saddle point, and . On a method of steepest descent ray leaving the saddle, choose the oriented local coordinatewith the square-root branch determined by that ray. Then and to leading order. For large positive , the effective range is . The half-Gaussian integral givesAs usual this saddle contribution presumes the remaining contour is lower in real phase and integrable. Reversing the contour orientation reverses the sign; the square-root convention encodes the chosen outgoing ray.
For the second integral set . Using the specified logarithm branch,The saddles are , and only is in the upper half-plane. HereThe contour can be deformed to the horizontal line through , oriented from left to right, without crossing the pole at zero. Along ,which has a unique strict maximum at and decays at infinity. This explicitly verifies saddle dominance. Locally . Both sides of the saddle contribute a full Gaussian, soFor integer , , and henceThere is no extra factor of two from another saddle: the full Gaussian already accounts for the incoming and outgoing parts at the upper saddle.
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