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Residue Theorem - Residue Calculus

Chapter 8 Residue Theory

8.1 The Residue Theorem

Overview

We now have the necessary machinery to see some amazing applications of the tools we developed in the last few
chapters. You will learn how Laurent expansions can give useful information concerning seemingly unrelated properties of
complex functions. You will also learn how the ideas of complex analysis make the solution of very complicated integrals of real-
valued functions as easy - literally - as the computation of residues. We begin with a theorem relating residues to the evaluation of
complex integrals.

The Cauchy integral formulae in Section 6.5 are useful in evaluating contour integrals over a simple closed contour C where the
integrand has the form and f is an analytic function. In this case, the singularity of the integrand is at worst a pole of
order k at . We begin this section by extending this result to integrals that have a finite number of isolated singularities inside the
contour C. This new method can be used in cases where the integrand has an essential singularity at and is an important
extension of the previous method.

Definition 8.1 (Residue). Let f(z) have a nonremovable isolated singularity at the point . Then f(z) has the Laurent
series representation for all z in some disk given by

The coefficient of is called the residue of f(z) at and we use the notation

Example 8.1. If , then the Laurent series of f about the point has the form

, and

Explore Solution 8.1.

Example 8.2. Find if .

Solution. Using Example 7.7, we find that g(z) has three Laurent series representations involving powers of z. The Laurent
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 .

Computing the first few coefficients, we obtain

Therefore, .

Explore Solution 8.2.

Recall that, for a function f(z) analytic in and for any r with , the Laurent series coefficients of f(z) are
given by

(8-1) for ,

where denotes the circle with positive orientation. This gives us an important fact
concerning . If we set in Equation (8-1) and replace with any positively oriented simple closed
contour C containing , provided is the still only singularity of f(z) that lies inside C, then we obtain

(8-2) .

If we are able to find the Laurent series expansion for f(z), then above equation gives us an important tool for evaluating
contour integrals.

Example 8.3. Evaluate where denotes the circle with positive orientation.

Solution. In Example 8.1 we showed that the residue of at is . Using Equation (8-2), we
get

Explore Solution 8.3.

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Theorem 8.1 (Cauchy's Residue Theorem). Let D be a simply connected domain, and let C be a simple closed positively
oriented contour that lies in D. If f(z) is analytic
inside C and on C, except at the points that lie inside C, then

The situation is illustrated in Figure 8.1.

Figure 8.1 The domain D and contour C and the singular points in the
statement of Cauchy's residue theorem.

Proof.

Proof of Theorem 8.1 is in the book.

Complex Analysis for Mathematics and Engineering

The calculation of a Laurent series expansion is tedious in most circumstances. Since the residue at involves only the
coefficient in the Laurent expansion, we seek a method to calculate the residue from special information about the nature of
the singularity at .

If f(z) has a removable singularity at , then for . Therefore, . Theorem 8.2 gives
methods for evaluating residues at poles.

Theorem 8.2 (Residues at Poles).

(i) If f(z) has a simple pole at , then .

(ii) If f(z) has a pole of order 2 at , then .

(iii) If f(z) has a pole of order 3 at , then .

(v) If f(z) has a pole of order k at , then .

Proof.

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Complex Analysis for Mathematics and Engineering

Example 8.4. Find the residue of at .

Solution. We write . Because has a zero of order 3 at and

. Thus f(z) has a pole of order 3 at . By part (iii) of Theorem 8.2, we have

This last limit involves an indeterminate form, which we evaluate by using L'Hôpital's rule:

Explore Solution 8.4.

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Example 8.5. Find where denotes the circle with positive
orientation.

Solution. We write the integrand as .

The singularities of f(z) that lie inside are simple poles at the points and , and a pole of order 2 at the
origin. We compute the residues as follows:

Finally, the residue theorem yields

The answer, , is not at all obvious, and all the preceding calculations are required to get it.

Explore Solution 8.5.

Example 8.6. Find where denotes the circle with positive orientation.
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Solution. The singularities of the integrand that lie inside are simple poles occurring at the points
, as the points , lie outside . Factoring the denominator is tedious, so we use a different approach. If
is any one of the singularities of f(z) , then we can use L'Hôpital's rule to compute :

Since , we can simplify this expression further to yield

We now use the residue theorem to get

Explore Solution 8.6.

The theory of residues can be used to expand the quotient of two polynomials into its partial fraction representation.

Example 8.7. Let P(z) be a polynomial of degree at most 2. If a , b and c are distinct complex numbers, then

,
where

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Solution. It will suffice to prove that . We expand f(z) in its Laurent series about the point by writing the
three terms , , and in their Laurent series about the point and adding them. The term is itself a
one-term Laurent series about the point . The term is analytic at the point , and its Laurent series is actually a
Taylor series given by

which is valid for .

Likewise, the Laurent expansion of the term is

which is valid for . Thus the Laurent series of f(z) about the point is

which is valid for , where . Therefore , and calculation reveals that

Explore Solution 8.7.

Example 8.8. Express in partial fractions.

Solution. In Example 8.7 use and . Computing the residues, we obtain

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The formula for f(z) in Example 8.7 gives us

Explore Solution 8.8.

Remark 8.1. If a repeated root occurs, then the process is similar, and it is easy to show that if P(z) has degree of at most 2,
then

,
where

Example 8.9. Express in partial fractions.

Solution. Using the Remark 8.1 and and , we have

where

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Thus,

Explore Solution 8.9.

Extra Example 1. Express of in partial fractions.

Explore Solution for Extra Example 1.

Exercises for Section 8.1. The Residue Theorem

Library Research Experience for Undergraduates

Residue Calculus

Contour Integrals

Download This Mathematica Notebook

Download The Maple Worksheet

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 The Next Module is
Trigonometric Integrals via Contour Integrals

Return to the Complex Analysis Modules

Return to the Complex Analysis Project

(c) 2006 John H. Mathews, Russell W. Howell

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