Argument principle Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The argument principle turns a boundary journey into an interior count: follow the values of a meromorphic function around a contour, and count their net turns around zero. Every enclosed zero of a function contributes its multiplicity of a zero; every enclosed pole subtracts its order. There is no need to find each zero of a function separately.
Let be a piecewise smooth simple closed curve with positive orientation of a contour. Suppose is a meromorphic function on an open neighborhood of the curve and its interior, with no zeros of a function or poles on . Then
Here is the sum of the zero multiplicities inside , and is the sum of the orders of its enclosed poles. The image contour may cross itself or revisit a point. Its signed winding number, rather than the number of visually bounded regions, is the quantity that counts.[ref]
For the polynomial and the unit circle , , the image is . It goes around zero three times although its drawn outline is just one circle. The interior contains one distinct zero of a function, at zero, with multiplicity of a zero three: the count is three. Reversing the orientation of a contour reverses the winding number and the sign of the contour integral.
An argument must be followed continuously along the journey. Subtracting the principal arguments at the endpoints loses whole turns: a closed image contour has the same endpoint value even when its winding number is nonzero. Nor does winding number zero prove that there are no zeros of a function: one enclosed simple zero of a function and one enclosed simple pole cancel in . Known poles must be added back to recover .
The mechanism is short. Near a zero of a function of order , factor with a nonvanishing holomorphic function. Its logarithmic derivative is , so its residue is . A pole of order gives residue . The residue theorem adds those contributions. Changing variables to identifies the resulting contour integral with the winding number. This is a local algebraic count joined to a global geometric count.[ref]
The usefulness goes beyond explicit polynomials. Rouché's theorem keeps a count unchanged when a boundary perturbation cannot push the image contour through zero. The Nyquist stability criterion applies the same counting idea to poles governing a system under feedback control.[ref]
If polynomials of degree at most converge at distinct points, their coefficients converge, by invertibility of the Vandermonde matrix. Their limit is a polynomial of degree at most , and convergence is uniform on every compact subset of . Under convergence on compact sets, Rouché's theorem further locates a unique nearby zero for each simple root of the limit, for all sufficiently large indices. Finite initial polynomials need not have any root.
A finite Blaschke product is holomorphic across the unit circle and has modulus one there. For a constant with , Rouché's theorem makes and have the same number of interior zeros, counting multiplicity. Each factor contributes its prescribed zero; the poles are outside the closed disk.
Open mapping theorem (complex analysis) Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A nonconstant holomorphic function on a domain maps open sets to open sets. Around any point, isolate its zero relative to the value there and use Rouché's theorem to show that every sufficiently nearby value has a preimage.
A convenient version of Rouché's theorem is: if are holomorphic functions on a neighbourhood of a closed disk, and on its boundary, then and have the same number of zeros, counted with multiplicity, in the disk. In particular neither has a boundary zero under this comparison.
Put and use the boundary . There , , and .
For , compare with :
Therefore Rouché's theorem gives four zeros.
For , compare with :
The comparison polynomial is , which has three zeros in the disk, counting the double zero at .
For , take . Expansion gives . On the boundary,
The last strict inequality follows from . Only the simple zeros of lie inside the disk. Thus, in the requested order,
For , put . On the curve, , so no member of this homotopy has a boundary zero. The argument principle counts the interior zeros, with multiplicity, by its winding number . For a piecewise smooth curve this is
There are no poles, and the null-homotopy of the Jordan curve in the domain permits this interior count. The loops form a continuous homotopy avoiding zero, so their integer winding number stays constant. Equivalently, for a piecewise smooth curve the integral varies continuously with and is integer-valued. In particular
This proves Rouché's theorem. The counting is with multiplicity and assumes the usual positive orientation; reversing orientation reverses both winding counts without changing the conclusion.
The function is holomorphic on a neighborhood of the closed unit disk. On , the mapping assumption gives . Apply Rouché's theorem to and . Their sum has the same number of interior zeros as , namely one counting multiplicity. Thus
The zero is simple since its total multiplicity is one. No boundary fixed point is possible because maps the boundary strictly inside.
For nonnegative integers , put . Since , the denominator has no zero on or inside the unit circle. On ,
so . Consequently , and Rouché's theorem gives the same interior zero count for as for . The latter has zeros at zero and at , with the multiplicities combining when . Therefore
This is the interior zero count for a finite Blaschke product minus a constant. If , the nonzero constant has zero zeros, so the same conclusion includes that endpoint case.
On , the perturbation has modulus . Thus Rouché's theorem gives three roots inside , counted with multiplicity.
For the quadrant information, compare instead with , whose roots are , , . Their pairwise distances are . On the circle ,
The three unit discs are disjoint, and Rouché localization of polynomial roots gives one root in each, counted with multiplicity. The disc around lies strictly in the first quadrant in its interior; that around lies in the fourth quadrant; and that around lies in . Consequently there is exactly one root in each of those two right-hand quadrants, and exactly one root in the left half-plane. The same count also shows that each root is simple.
The form of Rouché's theorem used here is as follows. Suppose and are holomorphic on a neighborhood of the closure of a bounded Jordan domain, and on its positively oriented boundary. Then and have the same number of zeros inside, counted with multiplicity.
To prove this form, put for . The strict inequality prevents from vanishing on the boundary. The argument principle counts its interior zeros by . This integral varies continuously with : the integrand is continuous and its denominator stays uniformly away from zero on the compact boundary times . Its values are integers, so the integral is constant. Its values at are the respective zero counts. This proves Rouché's theorem with the multiplicities and boundary hypotheses required below.
A hyperbolic Riemann surface in potential theory is a noncompact Riemann surface admitting a positive Green function on a Riemann surface. With pole , this is a positive function harmonic off , having local form plus a harmonic function in a coordinate , and obtained as the minimal such positive function by exhaustion. This is a noncircular definition for the present proof. For a simply connected surface it is equivalent to disk conformal type; for arbitrary surfaces potential-theoretic hyperbolicity and disk universal-cover type should be distinguished.
The unit disk is an example. At pole zero its function is : it is positive in the punctured disk, harmonic there, has the correct logarithmic singularity, and tends to zero at the boundary. If another positive function has the same singularity and is harmonic elsewhere, subtract and apply the maximum principle for harmonic functions on disks of radius ; the boundary lower bound is . Letting shows that the other function dominates . Thus is indeed the positive Green function on a Riemann surface. At a general pole it is
Here is a Green-function exhaustion proof of disk uniformization. The main analytic idea is to build conformal maps on bordered disks from their Green functions and pass to an extremal limit. The positive global Green function prevents that limit from becoming constant.
First exhaust the noncompact simply connected surface by relatively compact domains containing , each with a smooth Jordan boundary. This topological step does not use conformal uniformization: take regular neighborhoods of finitely many coordinate disks covering successive compact sets and fill bounded complementary components. Simple connectedness and the Jordan curve theorem make the filled neighborhoods topological disks; enlarge them to be nested.
Each has a zero-boundary Green function on a Riemann surface . One analytic construction, independent of conformal uniformization, is as follows. Equip the compact bordered domain with a smooth conformal metric. Multiply by a smooth cutoff function equal to one near and zero near the boundary; call the result . Distributionally
where is smooth and supported away from . Solve with zero boundary data. This auxiliary Dirichlet problem can be obtained by minimizing over functions with zero boundary trace: the Poincaré inequality gives coercivity, minimization in a Hilbert space gives a weak solution, and interior and smooth-boundary elliptic regularity give a smooth solution. Then is harmonic away from , has the logarithmic pole, and vanishes at the boundary. It is positive by the maximum principle for harmonic functions, applied after removing a sufficiently small circle around its positive pole. This construction uses ordinary linear elliptic existence, not the desired uniformization theorem. Equivalently, the same bordered-domain Green functions can be constructed by the Perron method for the Dirichlet problem using local logarithmic barriers.
On choose local harmonic conjugates . Their period around the pole is , and every closed loop is homologous to an integer multiple of that loop. Therefore
is a single-valued holomorphic function. It extends across with one simple zero and has no others. Since , ; since on the boundary, there. Thus is proper. For any , choose a smooth interior contour sufficiently close to the boundary that everywhere on it. The contour surrounds and all possible preimages of , because throughout a thin boundary collar. By Rouché's theorem, has the same number of zeros inside as , namely one. Hence is onto and one-to-one, with nonzero derivative: it is a biholomorphism from to the disk.
Write near
Multiply by a unit constant so that, in the fixed coordinate, . Domain monotonicity gives : their difference is harmonic even at and nonnegative on . The global positive Green function on a Riemann surface similarly majorizes every . Comparing the regular parts shows that increases and is bounded above by the finite regular part of at . Consequently
On each fixed compact subdomain, the are eventually bounded holomorphic functions. Montel theorem and a diagonal subsequence therefore give a locally uniform convergence limit with and . The maximum modulus principle keeps its values strictly inside the disk. It is injective: for fixed , the functions have no zeros away from ; Hurwitz's theorem implies that their nonconstant limit has no other zeros. This is the locally uniform limit of univalent functions argument.
There is also an extremality property. For any holomorphic function with , the function is a disk self-map fixing zero. The Schwarz lemma gives . Passing to the limit yields .
Finally suppose omits . Necessarily . Apply the disk Möbius transformation . The nowhere-zero function has a global holomorphic logarithm because is simply connected, hence a holomorphic square root . It maps into the disk and . Normalize it by setting , so . Direct differentiation gives
The strict inequality follows from . This contradicts extremality. Therefore omits no point, and we conclude
Rouché's theorem states that if are holomorphic on a neighborhood of a closed disc with boundary and on , then and have the same number of zeros in the disc, counted with multiplicity. More generally the conclusion holds for a simple closed contour whose interior lies in their domain. To prove it, set for . The strict boundary inequality ensures on . By the argument principle,
is the integer number of zeros inside. The integrand is continuous in uniformly on , since its denominator is bounded away from zero on the compact product . Thus is continuous and integer-valued, so constant. This proves the theorem.
On , the term dominates the remaining terms because . Thus the polynomial has six zeros inside the unit circle. On , dominates because its modulus is , whereas the sum of the other bounds is . There are therefore nine zeros inside radius two. The strict inequalities exclude boundary zeros, so
For the fixed-degree polynomial limit, choose distinct complex nodes . Write , inserting zero coefficients if necessary. The vector of values at the nodes equals the fixed Vandermonde matrix times the coefficient vector. Its determinant is . Convergence of the values therefore implies coefficient convergence, say . For and a compact set with ,
This proves that the given limit is a polynomial of degree at most without invoking any theorem about uniform limits of holomorphic functions.
When the limit has distinct roots, choose pairwise disjoint small closed discs around them, with no limit root on their boundaries. On each boundary has a positive minimum. Uniform convergence makes there for all sufficiently large , so Rouché's theorem puts exactly one root of in each disc. For every smaller disc about the same argument applies eventually. The unique root in the original disc must then lie in the smaller one, proving
The literal demand for a root at every initial index needs this finite-index qualification: , for satisfies the hypotheses with limit , but has no root. If every initial polynomial has a root, arbitrary choices at the finitely many exceptional indices extend the convergent sequences; otherwise the sequences necessarily start at an eventual index.
The assertion is true. The assumed finite multiplicity means that is not identically zero and has an isolated zero of order at . Choose so that and has no other zeros in this closed disc. On its boundary,
The joint holomorphy established above gives uniformly on that circle as . For sufficiently small , therefore, . By Rouché's theorem, has exactly zeros in , counted with multiplicity. In particular it has at least one zero in . This preserves the total local zero count, without asserting that the zeros remain together.
Consistency was established in part (a). By the Dahlquist equivalence theorem, convergence additionally requires the root condition for a multistep method. Since , its roots lie in the closed unit disk with each unit-modulus root simple exactly for
The endpoint is zero-stability although it has a simple parasitic root at minus one; has a repeated root at one and is excluded.
For every parameter in this convergent range, the leading coefficient of is , while
Since as , it has a real root . Its other real root lies between minus one and one because , so the exterior root is simple.
On the Dahlquist test equation, the amplification polynomial of a multistep method is , with . For , the equivalent polynomial tends coefficientwise to , and its leading coefficient stays nonzero. Choose a small closed disk about lying wholly outside the unit disk and containing no other root of . On its boundary has a positive minimum, while is smaller for every sufficiently large . Rouché's theorem then puts one root of inside this exterior disk for all such complex .
That root violates the stability root condition for a multistep method. Hence there is a finite radius beyond which no point belongs to the absolute stability domain:
This proves boundedness in every complex direction, rather than only excluding A-stability. It is an instance of exterior roots of the derivative polynomial bound multistep stability.
Rouché's theorem states that if are holomorphic on and inside a simple closed contour and on it, then and have the same number of zeros inside, counted with multiplicity. On , the power series for sine gives
Apply Rouché's theorem with and . There is one zero inside and none on the boundary. Since is a zero and , it is simple. Exactly one complex number qualifies: .
Rouché's theorem states that if are holomorphic functions on a neighbourhood of a simple closed contour and its interior, and on the contour, then and have the same number of zeros inside, counted with multiplicity.
On , use : the other terms have absolute value at most . Hence there are two zeros inside the unit circle. On , use : its modulus is , whereas the other terms have total modulus at most . Hence there are seven zeros inside the larger circle. The strict inequalities also exclude zeros on either boundary. There are roots in the annulus, counted with multiplicity.
The hypothesis says that has a zero of order at , so write
with holomorphic near . Differentiating gives
Choose so small that the closed disc lies in the domain, never vanishes there, and the parenthesized factor never vanishes there. Thus is the only critical point of in that disc.
On the boundary circle, is nonzero. Set
If , then on the boundary. Rouché's theorem applied to and says that has the same number of zeros in as , namely , counted with multiplicity.
None of these zeros is because , and none is a critical point because has no other zero in the disc. Every zero of is therefore simple. Hence there are exactly
Uniform convergence on compact subsets makes continuous. For every triangle whose closure lies in , uniform convergence on its boundary permits passage through the contour integral:
Morera's theorem implies that is holomorphic. If a compact set is surrounded by a finite union of contours at positive distance from , the Cauchy integral formula for derivatives gives
The uniform bound on the surrounding compact set proves that uniformly on .
If had distinct zeros and , choose disjoint small closed discs around them whose boundary contains no zero of . Uniform convergence and Rouché's theorem imply that, for large , has a zero in each disc, contradicting uniqueness of . Thus has at most one zero.
For an example on the unit disc, take
Then , which has no zero in the open disc. In general, Hurwitz's theorem shows that is zero-free exactly when the unique zeros escape every compact subset of :
Indeed, an interior accumulation point of is a zero of , while a zero of forces the unique into each of its sufficiently small neighbourhoods.
Rouché's theorem states that if and are holomorphic functions on a neighbourhood of the closure of a bounded domain and
on its positively oriented boundary, then and have the same number of zeros in the domain, counted with multiplicity.
The Open mapping theorem states that a nonconstant holomorphic function on a domain maps every open subset to an open subset. To prove it, fix and put . By the identity theorem, the zeros of are isolated. Choose so that the closed disc lies in the domain and is the only zero of in that disc. Then
Whenever , the constant has modulus smaller than on the circle. The Rouche theorem therefore says that
has the same positive number of zeros in the disc as . Thus every lies in the image of , proving that the image is open.
If had a local maximum at , take a small open disc on which . The restriction of to cannot be constant, since the identity theorem would then make constant on the whole domain. The complex open mapping theorem says that is an open neighbourhood of , and such a neighbourhood contains points of modulus greater than , a contradiction. This proves the maximum modulus principle from the complex open mapping theorem.
Now let be bounded. Its closure is compact, so the continuous function attains a maximum there. If is nonconstant, the maximum modulus principle excludes an interior maximum; if is constant, the claimed bound is immediate. Hence
which is the maximum modulus principle on a bounded domain.
Finally let and suppose throughout . Fix . The principal complex logarithm is holomorphic on the right half-plane, so for each positive integer the function
is holomorphic on and continuous on its closure. Given , choose so large that
Apply the bounded-domain result to on . On the vertical part of the boundary, and hence . On the circular part,
It follows that
Letting and then gives . Since was arbitrary, this proves the bounded half-plane maximum principle.
The boundedness assumption is necessary. The function
is holomorphic on and continuous on its closure, and on the boundary, but is unbounded for real . Thus the boundary estimate does not control an unbounded holomorphic function on this unbounded domain.
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.