Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / ib / Paper 3 / 13F / Solution

For a closed piecewise smooth curve $\gamma$ avoiding $w$, its winding number about $w$ is

The argument principle says that if a positively oriented closed curve $\gamma$ bounds a domain $U$, and a meromorphic function $F$ has no zeros or poles on $\gamma$, thenwhere zeros and poles are counted with multiplicity.

Suppose $F$ and $G$ are holomorphic on a neighbourhood of $\overline{U}$ andFor $0\le t\le 1$, $F+tG$ has no boundary zero, because a zero would imply $|F|=t|G|<|F|$. Its argument-principle count is integer-valued and continuous in $t$, hence constant. Thus Rouché's theorem states that

Now let $w_0=f(z_0)$. Since $|w_0|<1\le |f|$ on the unit circle, Rouché's theorem shows that $f$ and $f-w_0$ have the same number of zeros in the unit disc. The latter has the zero $z_0$, so $f$ has at least one zero there. For any $w$ with $|w|<1$, the same boundary inequality shows that $f-w$ has the same positive number of zeros as $f$. ThereforeThis is the unit-disc image from a boundary modulus lower bound.

Finally, take a sufficiently small positively oriented circle $C$ around zero. The residueis the winding number of $g(C)$ around zero, so $k\in \mathbb{Z}$. The pole is simple, hence its residue is nonzero and $k\ne 0$. Forwe haveThe second term cancels the complete principal part at zero, so the integer residue of a logarithmic derivative proves that $h^{\prime }/h$ has a removable singularity there.

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.