Paper 4, Section II, A

Asymptotic Methods
Part II, 2011

Determine the range of the integer nn for which the equation

d2ydz2=zny\frac{d^{2} y}{d z^{2}}=z^{n} y

has an essential singularity at z=z=\infty.

Use the Liouville-Green method to find the leading asymptotic approximation to two independent solutions of

d2ydz2=z3y\frac{d^{2} y}{d z^{2}}=z^{3} y

for large z|z|. Find the Stokes lines for these approximate solutions. For what range of argz\arg z is the approximate solution which decays exponentially along the positive zz-axis an asymptotic approximation to an exact solution with this exponential decay?