Write the period lattice as , with real-linearly independent and . A meromorphic function is an elliptic function for this lattice if for every . If it has no poles, it is an entire function bounded on the closure of a fundamental parallelogram. Periodicity makes it bounded on all of , so the Liouville theorem proves that an elliptic function without poles is constant.
Here are the two contour identities needed for counting its zeros and their sum. Choose a positively oriented fundamental parallelogram whose boundary avoids all zeros and poles, and put . The argument principle gives
because is periodic and opposite edges cancel. Here count zeros and poles with multiplicity. For the weighted integral, let be the integral of along the edge from a vertex to . Translating the opposite edges gives
The endpoint values of agree along either edge. A continuous logarithm along the edge therefore changes by , with , and . On the other hand, the residue theorem evaluates the left side as the sum of the zero positions minus the sum of the pole positions, both with multiplicity. Thus the elliptic divisor-sum identity is
Under the stated pole hypothesis there is just one pole class, represented by zero, of order . Consequently
Changing representatives of the zero classes changes their weighted sum by an element of , so the congruence is well defined.
The Weierstrass elliptic function is
On a bounded set of , the summand is for large . The lattice sum of converges in real dimension two, proving Normal convergence of the Weierstrass elliptic-function series on compact sets away from . Hence is a holomorphic function there, and at zero its principal part is , so it has a double pole. Replacing by shows that is even. Differentiating the normally convergent series gives
whose absolute convergence permits reindexing by any . Thus is periodic and is constant. Substituting for and using evenness changes that constant to its negative, so it is zero. This proves that is an elliptic function, with double poles precisely at the lattice points.
The preceding zero count applied to says that it has exactly two zeros modulo , counted with multiplicity. Evenness pairs any zero with . If these are distinct classes they must both be simple. If they coincide, , and locally : the zero has even order, which the total count forces to be two. In particular such a zero cannot be a lattice point, where has a pole. Every finite fibre of the Weierstrass function consists of two opposite simple points or one double nonzero half-period point.
To obtain the rational representation, first consider an even elliptic function . The preceding description proves that has exactly the fibres , so defines a function of . Away from the branch values a local inverse of makes meromorphic. At a half-period , the local expansion is , with because the zero has order exactly two. The Laurent series of contains only even powers, and is a holomorphic local coordinate as a function of . Thus is meromorphic at that value too. At zero the same argument uses , proving meromorphy at infinity. A meromorphic function on the Riemann sphere is a rational function: subtract its finitely many principal parts and use compactness to make the remainder constant. This proves that even elliptic functions are rational in the Weierstrass function.
For an arbitrary elliptic function, split , where . The even part is . Since is odd and not identically zero, is an even meromorphic elliptic function, including at the zeros of where the quotient may have poles. It is therefore for a rational function . The elliptic function-field decomposition is
The representation is unique: its even and odd parts determine and , and takes every value on the Riemann sphere.
By the argument principle, the number of zeros minus poles, counted with multiplicity, in the fundamental parallelogram is . The logarithmic derivative is periodic with the same lattice, so the integrals over opposite sides cancel. Thus the numbers of zeros and poles are equal.
The Weierstrass elliptic function gives a degree-two map whose fibers identify and . An even elliptic function is constant on these fibers, so it descends to a single-valued function on the sphere. This is meromorphic even at a branch value: near a half-period the involution is , the Laurent series of has only even powers, and has a double zero and provides a local coordinate in . At the image of , gives the same conclusion at infinity. A meromorphic function on the Riemann sphere is a rational function, so .
A meromorphic antiderivative need not be elliptic. Take . Its double poles have zero residue, so integrating on the punctured plane gives a single-valued primitive, since every closed-contour integral is a sum of zero residues. The primitive extends meromorphically over each pole, with local principal part . If were elliptic, it would have precisely one pole modulo the lattice, with residue , contradicting the zero sum of residues in a fundamental parallelogram. This is a nonconstant counterexample satisfying the stated premise; the preceding descent proves that even elliptic functions are rational in the Weierstrass function.
The scaling rule for the Chordal Loewner equation shows that , because . To identify the shape, rather than infer it from scaling alone, construct the inverse map explicitly. Put
Then , , and . Define
using logarithms whose arguments lie in on . Its Laurent series is , so it has the inverse hydrodynamic normalization at infinity.
On the real interval , the first factor has argument and the second has argument zero. The image therefore lies on one straight ray. Its modulus increases from zero to a maximum at , and then decreases to zero. The complementary real intervals map to the negative and positive real axes. The argument principle, or the usual conformal slit-map construction, shows that maps conformally onto the half-plane minus that segment; the interval traverses its two sides.
The boundary walk has winding number one around every point of the half-plane off the segment: the two traversals of the slit cancel, leaving the real boundary and a large semicircle. The argument principle therefore gives exactly one preimage of each such point.
It remains to check that this is the correct Loewner chain. For ,
Together with , this gives
the inverse form of the Chordal Loewner equation. Uniqueness therefore identifies its slit with . Its endpoint is , where lies in . This proves that the square-root Loewner driving function generates a straight slit and that
a straight ray from the boundary point to infinity.
For a closed piecewise smooth path avoiding , its winding number is
A meromorphic function has a zero of order at when
with holomorphic; it has a pole of order at when extends holomorphically and nonvanishingly there.
The argument principle states that, if has no zero or pole on ,
For a positively oriented simple contour this is the number of enclosed zeros minus poles, counted with multiplicity. It follows from the residue theorem because the residue of at a zero of order is , while at a pole of order it is .
Let
On the imaginary axis,
Thus always lies in the open right half-plane, has no zero there, and its continuous argument has net change zero as the imaginary-axis part of a large right-half-disc contour is traversed. On the right semicircle, uniformly, so the argument change tends to that of , namely . The argument principle therefore gives
roots in the open right half-plane, counted with multiplicity.
For a closed piecewise smooth curve avoiding , its winding number about is
The argument principle says that if a positively oriented closed curve bounds a domain , and a meromorphic function has no zeros or poles on , then
where zeros and poles are counted with multiplicity.
Suppose and are holomorphic on a neighbourhood of and
For , has no boundary zero, because a zero would imply . Its argument-principle count is integer-valued and continuous in , hence constant. Thus Rouché's theorem states that
Now let . Since on the unit circle, Rouché's theorem shows that and have the same number of zeros in the unit disc. The latter has the zero , so has at least one zero there. For any with , the same boundary inequality shows that has the same positive number of zeros as . Therefore
This is the unit-disc image from a boundary modulus lower bound.
Finally, take a sufficiently small positively oriented circle around zero. The residue
is the winding number of around zero, so . The pole is simple, hence its residue is nonzero and . For
we have
The second term cancels the complete principal part at zero, so the integer residue of a logarithmic derivative proves that has a removable singularity there.
Cauchy's formula gives for an entire function bounded by on every radius- circle. If is globally bounded, letting gives , proving Liouville's theorem.
Set . Its limit at zero makes the singularity removable, so
Consequently and .
The argument principle on a large circle gives number of zeros minus poles equal to the winding number of , which is zero because . Thus . The function
has removable singularities everywhere and tends to one at infinity. Liouville gives , hence
For a nonzero elliptic function with period lattice , its zeros of a function and poles , repeated with their multiplicities, have equal total number and satisfy . Choose a fundamental parallelogram avoiding all zeros and poles on its boundary. The argument principle applied to gives equality of the numbers. Applying the residue theorem to gives their difference of sums. Pairing opposite edges, the extra factors are the two lattice generators multiplied by integrals of along an edge. These integrals are integer multiples of , because the endpoints have the same nonzero function value. Thus the difference of sums is a lattice element. This links zeros of a pulled-back line to the chord-and-tangent group law.