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For $0<x<\pi /2$, the usual unit-circle area comparison, with angles measured in radians, gives $\sin x\le x\le \tan x$. HenceThe cosine is a continuous function at zero, so the squeeze theorem yields the right-hand limit of a function $1$. The quotient $\sin x/x$ is even, so the left-hand limit of a function is the same. Thus the limit is $1$.

Let $\mathbf{n},\mathbf{w},\mathbf{u}$ be orthonormal unit vectors north, west and upward. A direction of altitude $\gamma$ and westward azimuth $\eta$ isThe north celestial pole and the upper equatorial meridian direction areIn the equatorial coordinate system, the same unit vector is $\mathbf{x}=\sin \delta \mathbf{p}+\cos \delta (\cos h\mathbf{e}+\sin h\mathbf{w})$. Taking dot products with $\mathbf{p},\mathbf{w},\mathbf{e}$ respectively givesThis is an orthogonal transformation between two bases, so it preserves the length of the direction vector. Recover $h$ from both its sine and cosine to keep the correct quadrant. At the zenith, azimuth itself is undefined; the vector equations remain meaningful by continuity. Using the more usual eastward azimuth changes the sign of the second equation.

The speckle contrast of a sinusoidal wavefront error gives a peak modal wave amplitude $h_0=(\lambda /\pi )\sqrt{C}$. If all $M$ residual modes have that wave amplitude, their coefficient norm is $H_{\mathrm{coeff}}=\sqrt{M}{h}_0$. Substituting the printed quadrant count gives the intended expressionThere is a normalization issue if this quantity is called physical spatial root mean square wavefront error. For $h(\mathbf{r})={\sum }_k{h}_{0k}\cos (2\pi {\mathbf{u}}_k\cdot \mathbf{r}/D+{\psi }_k)$, the actual pupil-averaged value isOn an orthogonal full-period basis, $⟨s_k^2⟩=1/2$ and cross terms vanish. Alternatively, independent uniform random wave phases give this result after wave phase averaging, even on a circular optical pupil. With the same $M$ and equal contrasts the physical RMS is thenA single full-period cosine already demonstrates the issue: its RMS is $h_0/\sqrt{2}$, not $h_0$. On the actual circular optical pupil, any nonconstant unit-peak cosine also has mean square strictly less than one; averaging over its wave phase gives exactly $1/2$. On a finite circular optical pupil, phase-dependent mode overlaps can additionally matter. If a constant piston is removed before computing RMS, replace the mode Gram matrix by its centred optical pupil covariance. The printed value can be recovered as a modal coefficient norm, or by counting $2M$ orthogonal peak-amplitude quadratures in the physical RMS; neither convention is specified by the quoted mode definition. This is the distinction between modal amplitude norm versus wavefront RMS, not a correction silently made to the PDF. Unequal residual contrasts require ${\mathbb{E}}_{\psi }{h}_{\mathrm{rms}}^2={\lambda }^2{\sum }_k{C}_k/(2{\pi }^2)$, so one speckle's $C$ alone cannot determine the total RMS. The weak-aberration approximation also requires the total wave phase error to stay small, not merely each coefficient separately.

Write spatial frequency in cycles across the optical pupil as $u=D/\Lambda$. The previous result gives a maximum axial spatial frequency $N/2$. If one counts one representative per positive-quadrant integer lattice point inside an isotropic disk $u_x^2+u_y^2\le (N/2{)}^2$, the continuum area estimate isThis is the geometric counting convention producing the printed formula. Lattice boundaries, the zero-frequency piston and axis points give lower-order corrections, so the formula is not an exact integer count.

The mode definition in the PDF is $D=j\Lambda /2$, hence $u=j/2$ and $j_{\max }=N$. It does not itself specify a two-dimensional lattice, its orientation, its independent wave phase components or a circular rather than square spatial frequency cutoff. Full-cycle integer frequencies correspond only to the even values of $j$ in that definition. A general real wavefront error also needs both sine and cosine quadratures, and distinct oblique orientations cannot all be identified with a single positive quadrant: the Fourier transform of a real wavefront has conjugate coefficients at $\mathbf{u}$ and $-\mathbf{u}$, rather than identifying every independent sign change of a component.

For comparison, a circular spatial frequency disk has approximately $\pi N^2/4$ signed full-cycle lattice points, or $\pi N^2/8$ conjugate pairs; two real wave phase components per pair restore approximately $\pi N^2/4$ real degrees of freedom. A square spatial frequency support gives a different count. The circular physical optical pupil similarly has only about $\pi N^2/4$ illuminated actuators. The printed $M$ is a quadrant area estimate under an extra counting convention; it is not a uniquely determined count of all independently correctable wavefront modes from the stated one-dimensional mode condition.

Write $S=x_1+\cdots +x_n$. The Taylor series of the cosine isAfter expanding each power by the multinomial theorem, the coefficient of $x^{\alpha }$ has absolute value $1/\alpha !$ when $|\alpha |$ is even and is zero when $|\alpha |$ is odd. The hyperbolic cosinetherefore has exactly the absolute values of the coefficients of $f$. Thus $g$ is an entire majorant series for $f$.

The secant function is the reciprocal of the cosine, $\sec x=1/\cos x$, where the denominator is nonzero. Its derivative is $\sec x\tan x$, and ${\sec }^{2}x=1+{\tan }^{2}x$ follows from the Pythagorean trigonometric identity.