Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/paper-1/7/solution

The Cauchy-Riemann equations are and . A holomorphic function is smooth, so equality of mixed partial derivatives gives
Thus its real and imaginary parts are harmonic functions.
An entire function is holomorphic at every finite point of the complex plane. The globally convergent power series for the exponential implies that and are entire. Their difference therefore gives
at every complex , proving that the hyperbolic sine is entire. For powers, the base case has derivative one everywhere. If is entire with derivative , the product rule gives everywhere. Induction proves that every positive integer power is entire.
A function has a pole of order at when it is holomorphic in a punctured neighbourhood and extends holomorphically to with . An isolated essential singularity is neither a removable singularity nor a pole; equivalently its Laurent series has infinitely many nonzero negative-power terms. In particular
has an essential singularity at zero.
For , the Laurent series about infinity is
To classify the point correctly, use . Then , and is holomorphic with value one at zero. Therefore
The pole at infinity is compatible with an essential singularity at the finite point zero. Negative powers of are regular powers of the local coordinate near infinity, so they do not make that point essential.

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