Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/paper-2/4/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2004 Paper 2 4 Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
The residue theorem states that a positively oriented simple closed contour enclosing isolated poles and none on the contour has integral times the sum of their residues, provided the function is holomorphic elsewhere inside. Near a simple zero of , . HenceFor , this gives for every integer .
To evaluate the real integral, integrate around an upper semicircle, with a small upper semicircular indentation excluding zero. Use the branch real on the positive axis and with argument between zero and in the upper half-plane. The large arc tends to zero as and the small arc as . The only enclosed pole is , whose contribution isOn the negative real axis the upper boundary value is . The two real segments therefore contributeComparing real parts yieldsThe integral is absolutely convergent at both zero and infinity, so no principal-value interpretation is needed.
New to topics? Read the docs here!