Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2012/s1/3/a/solution

The square-root branch points are zero and infinity. At zero the local behavior is ; in the coordinate near infinity it is . In either case one circuit reverses the sign and two restore it. Thus the ramification index is : these are two-sheeted algebraic branch points, sometimes described as branch order one when order means ramification index minus one. The decay to zero at infinity does not remove the branching.

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