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There are functions that are not integrable in general but for which integrals
between certain specific endpoints can be evaluated. These are often integrals
that can be rewritten, either by adding a known integral, or by using symmetry,
or by some other trick, as an integral over a closed path in the complex plane.
Such integrals can be evaluated by use of the Residue Theorem, which states that
the integral of a function f(z) counterclockwise around a simple closed path C
is 2i
times the sum of the residues of f within C. The residue of a function with an
isolated singularity is the coefficient of its minus first power at the singular
point. Thus this function has a singularity at i in the upper half plane and a singularity
at -i in the lower half plane, with residues
respectively. If we make a path C that goes up the real axis from -R to R then
around a semicircle in the upper half plane from R back to -R, for R > 1 this
will enclose the singularity at i. This gives us an integral we know. However the same technique applies to much more complicated integrands and allows us to do lots of integrals again from -R to R as R approaches infinity. We give two examples. One is the so called Fourier transform of . where C is the semicircle of radius R in the upper half plane, and again the integral on C goes to zero as R increases. Now we use this method to sum a series. The function cot x is singular at x = 0 and is periodic with period so it is singular at every multiple of . Its residue at each of these singularities is 1. Moreover, if you wander far off the real line, it quickly approaches either i or -i, since it is and the second terms in the numerator and denominator will dominate in the
upper half plane making the integrand approach -i and the first terms will dominate
in the lower half plane so that it approaches i as |y| increases there. or You can actually sum the first 128 (or 1024) terms of this sum on a spreadsheet
and extrapolate by comparing the sum up to different powers of 2. If you extrapolate
first forming S2(k) = S(2k)-S(2k-1), then S3(k) = (4S2(k)-S2(k-1))/3
then |