Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-perturbation-methods-and-applied-complex-variables-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2007/b/7/a/solution
Past exam of the perturbation methods and applied complex variables course of the University of Oxford 2007 B 7 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
The integral construction requires differentiation under the integral and vanishing boundary terms. With those assumptions, integration by parts givesThe standard construction therefore sets , giving . Convergent contours run between rays where : convenient central rays have arguments , and . Two choices are the oriented pathsThe cubic exponential dominates the linear one at both ends. To verify independence directly, put and . At the value and derivative of the integral along rays are and . For the two contours above their derivative-to-value ratios are respectively and , which differ. Hence their Wronskian is nonzero.
For the second equation multiply by before integrating by parts:Setting the residual weight to zero gives . One contour is the segment from to , with the square root positive at . Its integral is a nonzero multiple of : substituting gives , an entire function nonzero at zero.
A second contour starts at and follows , , choosing a continuous branch along the path. For it converges at infinity; at the branch endpoint its integrable singularity is . In both cases the boundary term contains and vanishes at branch endpoints. The second integral has a nonzero logarithmic divergence as through positive real values, because its large- integrand is a nonzero multiple of . It is therefore independent of the entire first solution; analytic continuation supplies solutions elsewhere away from the equation's singular point.
Strictly, nonzero and an arbitrary contour alone do not prove the printed necessity for . Necessity also needs injectivity of the chosen Laplace representation, while the vanishing-integrand argument above is the usual sufficient construction. For a concrete counterexample to unconditional necessity in the Bessel case, take a positively oriented circle , choose the branch outside the cut , and add one to that weight. The added entire integrand integrates to zero. Expanding the original weight on this circle gives integral , which is nonzero and solves the equation, although the modified weight is not a constant multiple of the printed one. The standard weights and contours above still give the requested independent solutions.
New to topics? Read the docs here!