Math Methods II: Problem Set 3

Instructor:Kaushik Bhattacharya ∗
Department of Physics
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Kanpur 208 016, India.

Date:- 27:02:2009

The problems must be solved neatly in fresh papers with a good hand writing. Clumsy work
will not be entertained and more over they will be lowly graded. The analytical reasoning must
be clear and it will be beneficial for you if you point out all the assumptions clearly.
1. Show that

(a) F1 (z) = z + 21 z 2 + 31 z 3 + 41 z 4 + · · · converges for |z| < 1.

(b) Also show that
2 3
1 1 z−i 1 z−i 1 z−i
   
F2 (z) = πi − ln 2 + + + +···
4 2 1−i 2 1−i 3 1−i
√
converges for |z − i| < 2.
(c) Show that F1 (z) and F2 (z) are analytic continuations of each other. What is the
possible form of the combined function F1 (z) and F2 (z)?

2. For any real x we know that

Z ∞
Γ(x) = tx−1 e−t dt .
0

Show that the definition only holds true when x > 0.

3. Obtain the solutions of

d2 y dy
(1 − x2 ) 2
− 2x + n(n + 1)y = 0 ,
dx dx
where n is a real number. Comment on the parity of the solutions. Show that both the
solutions of the above differential equation diverge at x = ±1 if the series continues to
infinity. How can you make the series finite?

4. Obtain the solutions of

d2 y dy
2
− 2x + 2ny = 0 ,
dx dx
∗
e-mail addresses:kaushikb@iitk.ac.in

1
respecting all the symmetries of the equation. Here also n is a real number. Show both
solutions are convergent for all x while the ratio of successive coefficients of powers of x in
the series behaves analogous to the ratio of the successive coefficients of the powers of x in
2
the expansion of e2x . What choice of the parameter n makes does one if one wishes to cut
the infinite series to a finite term polynomial?