Laurent Series Representations

Suppose f(z) is not analytic in

, but is analytic in

. For

example, the function

is not analytic when
but is analytic for
. This
function does not have a Maclaurin series representation. If we use the Maclaurin series for
, however, and formally divide each term in that series by , we obtain the
representation

that is valid for all z such that

The question arises as to whether it might be possible to generalize the Taylor series method to
functions analytic in an ring
.
Perhaps we can represent these functions with a series that employs negative powers of z in
some way as we did with
. As you will see shortly, we can indeed. We begin by
defining a series that allows for negative powers of z.
Definition Laurent Series: Let
infinite series

be a complex number for

. The doubly

, called a Laurent series, is defined by

,
provided the series on the right-hand side of this equation converge.

Remark Recall that

is a simplified expression for the sum

times it will be convenient to write

as

,
rather than using the expression above

Dr. R. Hernandez

Page 1

. At

Definition: Given

, we define the ring centered at with radii r and R by

.

The closed ring centered at with radii r and R is denoted by

.
The figure below illustrates these terms.

The closed ring

. The shaded portion is the open ring

Theorem Suppose that the Laurent series

converges on a ring
. Then the series converges uniformly on any closed sub-ring
where
.
The main result of this section specifies how functions analytic in a ring can be expanded in a
Laurent series. In it, we will use symbols of the form
, which - we remind you - designate
the positively oriented circle with radius and center . That is,
,
oriented counterclockwise.
Theorem (Laurent's Theorem). Suppose
, and that f(z) is analytic in the ring
. If is any number such that
, then for all
the function value
has the Laurent series representation

,
Dr. R. Hernandez

Page 2

where for

, the coefficients

are given by

and

Remark. What happens to the Laurent series if f(z) is analytic in the disk

? If we look at

the equations we see that the coefficient for the positive power
equals
by
using Cauchy's integral formula for derivatives. Hence, the series iinvolving the positive powers
of
is actually the Taylor series for f(z). The Cauchy-Goursat theorem shows us that the
coefficients for the negative powers of
equal zero. In this case, therefore, there are no
negative powers involved, and the Laurent series reduces to the Taylor series.
The theorem beow delineates two important aspects of the Laurent series.
Theorem (Uniqueness and differentiation of Laurent Series). Suppose that
the ring
, and has the Laurent series representation

for all

is analytic in

(i) If
for all
, then
for all n.
(In other words, the Laurent series for f(z) in a given ring is unique.)
(ii) For all
of its Laurent series.

, the derivatives for

may be obtained by termwise differentiation

The uniqueness of the Laurent series is an important property because the coefficients in the
Laurent expansion of a function are seldom found by using Equation (7-23). The following
examples illustrate some methods for finding Laurent series coefficients.
Example. Find three different Laurent series representations for the function
involving powers of z.

Dr. R. Hernandez

Page 3

Solution. The function f(z) has singularities at

and is analytic in the disk
,
in the ring
, and in the region
. We want to find a different Laurent
series for f(z) in each of the three domains D, A, and R. We start by writing f(z) in its partial
fraction form:
.We use the theorems and corollaries to obtain the following representations for the terms on the
right side of the equation above:

As we saw in class, representations 1 and 3 are both valid in the disk

have

valid for
which is a Laurent series that reduces to a Maclaurin series.
Dr. R. Hernandez

Page 4

, and thus we

In the ring

, representations 2 and 3 are valid; hence we get

valid for
Finally, in the region

we use Representations 2 and 4 to obtain

valid for
Example Find the Laurent series representation for
z.

Solution. We know that

that involves powers of

, and hence the Maclaurin series for

,
then we can write

or in another way we can write

We formally divide each term by

Dr. R. Hernandez

to obtain the Laurent series

Page 5

is