Along one path, analytic continuation is a chain of function elements on overlapping open discs, each agreeing with the preceding germ of a holomorphic function near the crossing point. The identity theorem makes this chain unique along that fixed path. Equality at a crossing means equality on a neighbourhood, not just equality of a single value.
For the deformation step, fix one intermediate path and its continuation. By compactness of , choose a finite chain of representative open discs and subdivide the parameter so that each subarc fits in its assigned open disc, with consecutive junctions in overlap neighbourhoods where the representatives agree. Joint continuity of ensures that every sufficiently nearby intermediate path uses that same chain and those same overlaps. The endpoints stay fixed, so the terminal germ of a holomorphic function stays unchanged. Existence along every intermediate path supplies this argument at each ; local constancy and connectedness of give equality at and . This proves the monodromy theorem without assuming that every analytic germ projection is a covering map.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 ii Paper 2 23H Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A function element is a pair where is a nonempty disk and is holomorphic there; the germ at its center captures its local information. Elements continue one another when their functions agree on an overlapping connected neighborhood. A complete analytic function is a maximal collection reachable from one element by chains of analytic continuation, including all further continuations of its members.
If in the initial disk, the identity theorem propagates this identity across every overlapping disk in a continuation chain. Induction along the chain proves every element of the complete analytic function also satisfies .
Put . Its gradient is . At a point of the curve with , the second entry is nonzero; at , the root of is simple and the first entry is nonzero. Thus the holomorphic implicit function theorem supplies charts. Its precise local statement is that a holomorphic equation with nonzero derivative in one variable can locally be solved uniquely and holomorphically for that variable as a function of the other. For , use as coordinate and write ; at a simple root use as coordinate and write . The transition maps are holomorphic with nonzero derivatives, giving a Riemann surface. The two projections are holomorphic because they are holomorphic expressions in either kind of chart.
Away from the zeros of , the projection onto is an unramified -sheeted covering. A germ of a root corresponds to and its analytic continuations follow this covering. Near a simple root, is a nonzero analytic factor times ; a circuit about cyclically permutes all branches. For nonconstant square-free , these circuits connect all sheets. Hence the germ surface is the curve with the points over the roots removed, and is its branched completion obtained by adding those ramification points. An ordinary function element in the variable cannot include such a point: the zero order of a holomorphic th power is divisible by , whereas has zero order one. If a convention already includes these branch points in the Riemann surface of a multivalued function, that completed surface is itself. For a nonzero constant , the curve has separate components, and the chosen element determines just one of them. The identically zero polynomial is excluded by the non-singularity premise.