FUNCTION DIARY
Dr. Rachel Hall
Spring 2010

Due Friday, May 7th.  The paper may be typed (double spaced) or neatly handwritten on one side of the paper, or a combination of both.  It should be organized as a paper, rather than a series of exercises.


Required elements.  (not necessarily in this order) This portion is worth 90 of 100 points.

______  Your function on the real numbers.  Describe your function as a function of real numbers.  That is, investigate y=f(x) when x is real.

______  Identification of real and imaginary parts.  Find u and v.

______  Domain of definition (and discussion of multiple values, if appropriate). Find the domain of definition.  Is it open? closed? connected?  If you have a multiple-valued function, how many values does f(z) have?  Indicate how you can make it single valued.

______  Mapping.  Discuss the mapping z -> f(z). Draw, by hand or with technology, a plot or plots that illustrate some important features of the mapping.  Some things you could comment on, depending on how complicated the mapping is:  What does your function do to vertical lines?  Horizontal lines?  Rays through the origin?  Circles centered at the origin?  All circles and lines?  Use color!

______  Continuity.  Is your function continuous on its domain of definition?  If not, where are the discontinuities?  Explain.

______  Behavior at infinity.  Find the limit of your function at infinity.  If the limit is undefined, explain why.  Are there points at which lim_(z -> z0) f(z)  = infinity?  To answer this question:  (1)  If your function is defined on the entire complex plane, you need only check the limit at infinity.  (2)  If your function has discontinuities, find the limit(s) of f(z) at the discontinuities, if the limits exist.

______  Modular surface plot.  Make a plot of the modular surface of your function.  Choose appropriate ranges so that interesting features become apparent, like poles and zeros.

______  Analyticity.  Determine the singular points of the function and show that your function is analytic everywhere except at those points.  What is the derivative of your function? the antiderivative? 

______  Contour integrals.  See HW #8 for the contour integral problems. Cook up a Cauchy Integral Formula problem involving your function and solve it.  If your function can be written as f(z) = g(z)/(z-z0)n , you can use the CIF directly; otherwise you’ll have to be a little more creative.

______  Taylor series.  Find the Taylor series about z = 0 (if your function is analytic there) or about z = 1 (if it’s not analytic at 0).   Indicate the radius of convergence in the complex plane.

______  Laurent series.  If your function has isolated singular points, find its Laurent series (one for each isolated singular point).  If it doesn’t, find the Laurent series for f(z)/z at the origin (or f(z)/(z-1) at 1 if that makes more sense).  Find the region on which the series converges.

______  Bibliography  Cite all sources, with page numbers, for theorems you have used without proof (you need not cite sources for definitions).  List the books or web sites you have used.


Optional elements.  Extra credit alert!!!  You need to do at least one extra problem to get 100%.  You can do more to earn extra credit.

Interesting facts about your function.  Does it belong to any interesting classes of functions?  To what other functions is it related?  What is its inverse?  You might find some ideas in Chapter 8...

Residue Theorem.  Cook up a nifty Residue Theorem problem involving your function, and solve it.

Cool stuff.  I’m a sucker for anything neat or unusual!