3.II .30. 30 B

Asymptotic Methods
Part II, 2006

The Airy function Ai(z)\operatorname{Ai}(z) is defined by

Ai(z)=12πiCexp(13t3+zt)dt\operatorname{Ai}(z)=\frac{1}{2 \pi i} \int_{C} \exp \left(-\frac{1}{3} t^{3}+z t\right) d t

where the contour CC begins at infinity along the ray arg(t)=4π/3\arg (t)=4 \pi / 3 and ends at infinity along the ray arg(t)=2π/3\arg (t)=2 \pi / 3. Restricting attention to the case where zz is real and positive, use the method of steepest descent to obtain the leading term in the asymptotic expansion for Ai(z)\operatorname{Ai}(z) as zz \rightarrow \infty :

Ai(z)exp(23z3/2)2π1/2z1/4\operatorname{Ai}(z) \sim \frac{\exp \left(-\frac{2}{3} z^{3 / 2}\right)}{2 \pi^{1 / 2} z^{1 / 4}}

[\left[\right. Hint: put t=z1/2τ.]\left.t=z^{1 / 2} \tau .\right]