Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 79 1 a ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
There are two contributing regions: an endpoint of width near , and a very narrow peak near . Both must be retained in the asymptotic expansion.
For the peak, set and . At fixed , and , so the integrand times approaches . This is the Lorentzian contribution from shrinking regularization. Its total contribution isFor example, cut off this region at : its scaled endpoints tend to infinity, while the changes in the exponential and logarithm inside the peak are exponentially small. The matched tails outside it are also exponentially small compared with the endpoint terms below.
At the endpoint, put and . To algebraic orders in , the regularizing denominator term is negligible there, giving the Laplace endpoint expansion with a logarithmic denominatorThis integral represents the endpoint expansion only; it is cut off before the original peak when making the argument precise. Since , with the Euler--Mascheroni constant, the first two contributions to the original integral areThe endpoint correction refines to , using derivatives of the gamma function. An application of Watson's lemma confined to would omit the leading peak contribution .