Convergence at implies that the terms form a bounded sequence: for some . If and , then
Comparison with the convergent geometric series proves absolute convergence. The case is vacuous.
The radius of convergence is the number such that a power series converges absolutely for and diverges for , with boundary behavior considered separately.
Take
Then is the convergent alternating harmonic series, whereas is the divergent harmonic series. Thus converges at a point of modulus one and diverges at another point of modulus one. It follows that
The radius of convergence of the power series is
If , choose with . Since , those terms are bounded, say . Therefore
and comparison with a geometric series proves absolute convergence. If , convergence would imply absolute convergence at every smaller modulus by the same argument, contradicting the definition of .
If , convergence of implies absolute convergence of whenever . Letting approach the radius of the -series shows that .
Assume and take . The free Gaussian integral gives , and the normalized free Gaussian measure has covariance . Expanding only the interaction exponential gives the asymptotic expansion
In this zero-dimensional scalar field theory, the path integral has become an ordinary integral, but its combinatorics are precisely those of sextic scalar field theory.
The free generating functional is . Differentiating it proves Wick theorem: odd moments vanish, while each even moment is the sum over pairings of its factors. Each Wick contraction contributes , so
Thus the Feynman rules are a quantum field theory propagator for each internal line and a factor for each six-valent interaction vertex. The factorials and remove vertex and half-edge labels; the remaining weight is , where is the Feynman-diagram symmetry factor, the order of the automorphism group of the resulting diagram, including its half-edge symmetries. A tadpole diagram has an additional interchange symmetry of the two ends of its loop.
There is one empty Vacuum Feynman diagram, contributing . At one interaction vertex, the six half-edges form three loops. Its Feynman-diagram symmetry factor is , so its contribution is .
At two interaction vertices let count the lines joining them. Each interaction vertex has self-loops, so can only be . These four possibilities exhaust all Vacuum Feynman diagrams at this order. Their Feynman-diagram symmetry factors are
Here the leading exchanges the two interaction vertices, permutes the joining lines, and the remaining factors permute and reverse the self-loops. The graph is disconnected and must be included in ; only a connected generating functional would discard it.
Figure 1. . The empty diagram, the one-interaction vertex diagram, and the four two-interaction vertex diagrams, with their Feynman-diagram symmetry factors. Details.
Consequently,
Indeed , independently agreeing with from Wick theorem.
This is an asymptotic expansion, rather than a convergent perturbation series: the coefficient of contains and grows too rapidly for a nonzero radius of convergence. For any fixed truncation order, the Taylor expansion remainder bound for on , followed by the finite Gaussian moment integral, proves the stated remainder estimate. For negative real the original integral diverges.
Let
The set contains zero. If and , then by comparison. Moreover, if the original power series diverges at , no can lie in , because absolute convergence at would imply absolute convergence at . Thus is finite and nonnegative.
If , choose with ; comparison gives absolute convergence at . If and the series converged at , then its terms would be bounded. For any with ,
so the geometric series comparison would put in , contradicting the definition of . This proves the radius of convergence property.
For , the ratio is , so the geometric series criterion gives
Let . The Cauchy-Hadamard theorem, proved by applying the root test, gives a radius of convergence
with the usual conventions. For , choose eventually bounding , which gives absolute convergence by comparison with a geometric series. For , infinitely many terms have th root greater than one, so the terms fail to tend to zero and the series diverges.
Here and the assumed limit gives . Therefore
Thus
The Taylor series of the complex sine is
Therefore, for ,
and the right side defines a holomorphic function at with value . Thus the apparent singularity is a removable singularity.
The resulting power series is
The ratio test shows convergence for every , so its radius of convergence is
For and rational , every admits with
Consequently
By the Cauchy-Hadamard theorem, the Taylor series of at has radius of convergence zero.
Suppose some Taylor series represented throughout a neighborhood of a point . That neighborhood contains a rational . A function represented locally by a convergent power series is a real analytic function, and re-expanding that series about gives the Taylor series of at a positive radius of convergence. This contradicts the preceding conclusion. Thus agrees with no Taylor series on a neighborhood of any point; it is a nowhere-analytic generic smooth function.
The exact energies and mixing coefficients contain
As a function of complex , its nearest branch points to the origin occur when its argument vanishes:
Their distance from the expansion point determines the radius of convergence. Therefore
The real-axis perturbation series converges for .
The radius of convergence of a power series is the number such that the series has absolute convergence for and diverges for . Equivalently,
Use , including at . The supremum may be . There is no general conclusion at : boundary convergence depends on the coefficients. If , only the centre is guaranteed; if , every finite lies inside the disk of convergence.
Use the ceiling function to choose positive integer coefficients
Because , we have and
For , the comparison test for series with the geometric series gives
For , we instead have , so the terms do not tend to zero. Thus the power series has radius of convergence exactly .
All three examples below have positive integer coefficients, so they work under either convention for whether .
For , take . This is the geometric series: it converges for , and its terms fail to tend to zero for .
For , take , using the factorial and . For every fixed , the absolute values of successive terms have ratio . This eventually exceeds two, so the terms grow without bound and the series cannot converge. At it is finite, giving radius of convergence zero.
For , take
using the floor function. The coefficients satisfy
The upper bound and the comparison test for series give absolute convergence when . The lower bound prevents the terms tending to zero when . Hence the radius of convergence is exactly .
Under the extra hypothesis that exists for every real , its power series has infinite radius of convergence. Termwise differentiation of a power series is therefore valid to every finite order. For ,
At this is the expected value of the falling factorial of :
In particular . The terms with vanish because their falling factorials contain a zero factor. These factorial moments are finite under the stated hypothesis.
Define the radius of convergence of the power series by
with when this set is unbounded. It is nonempty because the power series converges at zero.
If , the definition of supremum supplies a point of convergence with . The terms of a convergent series tend to zero and are bounded, say . Therefore
The right-hand side has a convergent geometric series, since . The comparison test proves absolute convergence at .
If and the power series converged at , then would belong to the set whose supremum is , an immediate contradiction. Thus
No assertion about the boundary follows from this argument. If the first assertion is vacuous; if the second is vacuous.
Split the power series into even and odd indices:
whenever the two series converge absolutely. If , the even part is a convergent geometric series, while the odd part is bounded termwise in absolute value by , also a convergent geometric series. Hence there is absolute convergence throughout .
If , the odd terms have absolute values . Their successive ratio tends to , so these terms grow eventually and do not tend to zero. The term test for divergence therefore forces divergence of the original power series. Consequently its radius of convergence is
For fixed , the ratio of successive absolute values is
The ratio test says that a series converges absolutely when this ratio has a limit of a sequence strictly below one. Thus this power series converges absolutely for every complex ; at zero the conclusion is immediate. Its radius of convergence is .
For a power series , its radius of convergence separates absolute convergence for from divergence for . One may define , allowing .
To justify convergence inside the radius, choose with . In particular for some , so
The comparison test with a geometric series proves absolute convergence. Conversely, convergence at a point of modulus makes bounded there and gives absolute convergence at all smaller moduli by the same estimate. Consequently a convergent point of modulus greater than would contradict the definition of .
For , the real domain of convergence is one of , , , or . At these are realized respectively by
The endpoint assertions follow from the harmonic series, alternating series test, and p-series. Replacing by realizes every finite positive radius. The degenerate domain occurs for , while the entire real line occurs for . Their radii are zero and infinity by the ratio test.
Differentiate the probability generating function inside its radius of convergence:
Since these are and , respectively,
The generalized binomial series gives
In particular,
The recurrence follows directly from the coefficient product. The power series has radius of convergence one and represents the real cube root for .
Put . The local logarithmic series gives
For the infinite Taylor series, it is necessary to distinguish the real domain of the logarithm, , from its convergence interval about zero. Write . The complex zeros of are for integers , so the nearest logarithmic singularity to zero is at . The radius of convergence is therefore , giving convergence for and divergence for .
The two endpoints need separate checking. Factor off the nearest singularity:
The quotient has a nonzero removable value at ; its other zeros are at with . Consequently it has a holomorphic logarithm on a zero-free disk larger than , which is a simply connected domain, and the Taylor series of converges absolutely at both real endpoints. At , the remaining series converges by the alternating series test. At , it is and diverges. Thus the full real convergence set is
Convergence is absolute in the open interval and conditional at the left endpoint, where the sum equals . This endpoint distinction is an instance of isolating a logarithmic singularity to test a power-series endpoint.