Perturbation problem beyond all orders

In mathematics, perturbation theory works typically by expanding unknown quantity in a power series in a small parameter. However, in a perturbation problem beyond all orders, all coefficients of the perturbation expansion vanish and the difference between the function and the constant function 0 cannot be detected by a power series.

A simple example is understood by an attempt at trying to expand in a Taylor series in about 0. All terms in a naïve Taylor expansion are identically zero. This is because the function possesses an essential singularity at in the complex -plane, and therefore the function is most appropriately modeled by a Laurent series -- a Taylor series has a zero radius of convergence. Thus, if a physical problem possesses a solution of this nature, possibly in addition to an analytic part that may be modeled by a power series, the perturbative analysis fails to recover the singular part. Terms of nature similar to are considered to be "beyond all orders" of the standard perturbative power series.

See also

Asymptotic expansion

References


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