Mapping of the function. The animation shows different in blue color with the corresponding in red color. The point and are shown in the. y-axis represents the imaginary part of the complex number of and.
Though the termanalytic function is often used interchangeably with "holomorphic function", the word "analytic" is defined in a broader sense to denote any function (real, complex, or of more general type) that can be written as a convergentpower series in a neighbourhood of each point in itsdomain. That all holomorphic functions are complex analytic functions, and vice versa, is amajor theorem in complex analysis.[1]
Holomorphic functions are also sometimes referred to asregular functions.[2] A holomorphic function whose domain is the wholecomplex plane is called anentire function. The phrase "holomorphic at a point" means not just differentiable at, but differentiable everywhere within some close neighbourhood of in the complex plane.
The function is not complex differentiable at zero, because as shown above, the value of varies depending on the direction from which zero is approached. On the real axis only, equals the function and the limit is, while along the imaginary axis only, equals the different function and the limit is. Other directions yield yet other limits.
Given a complex-valued function of a single complex variable, thederivative of at a point in its domain is defined as thelimit[3]
This is the same definition as for thederivative of areal function, except that all quantities are complex. In particular, the limit is taken as the complex number tends to, and this means that the same value is obtained for any sequence of complex values for that tends to. If the limit exists, is said to becomplex differentiable at. This concept of complex differentiability shares several properties withreal differentiability: It islinear and obeys theproduct rule,quotient rule, andchain rule.[4]
A function isholomorphic on anopen set if it iscomplex differentiable atevery point of. A function isholomorphic at a point if it is holomorphic on someneighbourhood of.[5]A function isholomorphic on some non-open set if it is holomorphic at every point of.
A function may be complex differentiable at a point but not holomorphic at this point. For example, the functionis complex differentiable at, butis not complex differentiable anywhere else, esp. including in no place close to (see the Cauchy–Riemann equations, below). So, it isnot holomorphic at.
The relationship between real differentiability and complex differentiability is the following: If a complex function is holomorphic, then and have first partial derivatives with respect to and, and satisfy theCauchy–Riemann equations:[6]
which is to say that, roughly, is functionally independent from, the complex conjugate of.
If continuity is not given, the converse is not necessarily true. A simple converse is that if and havecontinuous first partial derivatives and satisfy the Cauchy–Riemann equations, then is holomorphic. A more satisfying converse, which is much harder to prove, is theLooman–Menchoff theorem: if is continuous, and have first partial derivatives (but not necessarily continuous), and they satisfy the Cauchy–Riemann equations, then is holomorphic.[8]
The termholomorphic was introduced in 1875 byCharles Briot andJean-Claude Bouquet, two ofAugustin-Louis Cauchy's students, and derives from the Greekὅλος (hólos) meaning "whole", andμορφή (morphḗ) meaning "form" or "appearance" or "type", in contrast to the termmeromorphic derived fromμέρος (méros) meaning "part". A holomorphic function resembles anentire function ("whole") in adomain of the complex plane while a meromorphic function (defined to mean holomorphic except at certain isolatedpoles), resembles a rational fraction ("part") of entire functions in a domain of the complex plane.[9] Cauchy had instead used the termsynectic.[10]
Today, the term "holomorphic function" is sometimes preferred to "analytic function". An important result in complex analysis is that every holomorphic function is complex analytic, a fact that does not follow obviously from the definitions. The term "analytic" is however also in wide use.
Because complex differentiation is linear and obeys the product, quotient, and chain rules, the sums, products and compositions of holomorphic functions are holomorphic, and the quotient of two holomorphic functions is holomorphic wherever the denominator is not zero.[11] That is, if functions and are holomorphic in a domain, then so are,,, and. Furthermore, is holomorphic if has no zeros in; otherwise it ismeromorphic.
Every holomorphic function can be separated into its real and imaginary parts, and each of these is aharmonic function on (each satisfiesLaplace's equation), with theharmonic conjugate of.[12]Conversely, every harmonic function on asimply connected domain is the real part of a holomorphic function: If is the harmonic conjugate of, unique up to a constant, then is holomorphic.
Here is arectifiable path in a simply connectedcomplex domain whose start point is equal to its end point, and is a holomorphic function.
Cauchy's integral formula states that every function holomorphic inside adisk is completely determined by its values on the disk's boundary.[13] Furthermore: Suppose is a complex domain, is a holomorphic function and the closed disk iscompletely contained in. Let be the circle forming theboundary of. Then for every in theinterior of:
In regions where the first derivative is not zero, holomorphic functions areconformal: they preserve angles and the shape (but not size) of small figures.[14]
Everyholomorphic function is analytic. That is, a holomorphic function has derivatives of every order at each point in its domain, and it coincides with its ownTaylor series at in a neighbourhood of. In fact, coincides with its Taylor series at in any disk centred at that point and lying within the domain of the function.
From a geometric perspective, a function is holomorphic at if and only if itsexterior derivative in a neighbourhood of is equal to for some continuous function. It follows from
that is also proportional to, implying that the derivative is itself holomorphic and thus that is infinitely differentiable. Similarly, implies that any function that is holomorphic on the simply connected region is also integrable on.
(For a path from to lying entirely in, define; in light of theJordan curve theorem and thegeneralized Stokes' theorem, is independent of the particular choice of path, and thus is a well-defined function on having or.)
The definition of a holomorphic function generalizes to several complex variables in a straightforward way. A function in complex variables isanalytic at a point if there exists a neighbourhood of in which is equal to a convergent power series in complex variables;[15]the function isholomorphic in an open subset of if it is analytic at each point in.Osgood's lemma shows (using the multivariate Cauchy integral formula) that, for a continuous function, this is equivalent to being holomorphic in each variable separately (meaning that if any coordinates are fixed, then the restriction of is a holomorphic function of the remaining coordinate). The much deeperHartogs' theorem proves that the continuity assumption is unnecessary: is holomorphic if and only if it is holomorphic in each variable separately.
More generally, a function of several complex variables that issquare integrable over everycompact subset of its domain is analytic if and only if it satisfies the Cauchy–Riemann equations in the sense of distributions.
Functions of several complex variables are in some basic ways more complicated than functions of a single complex variable. For example, the region of convergence of a power series is not necessarily an open ball; these regions are logarithmically-convexReinhardt domains, the simplest example of which is apolydisk. However, they also come with some fundamental restrictions. Unlike functions of a single complex variable, the possible domains on which there are holomorphic functions that cannot be extended to larger domains are highly limited. Such a set is called adomain of holomorphy.
The concept of a holomorphic function can be extended to the infinite-dimensional spaces offunctional analysis. For instance, theFréchet orGateaux derivative can be used to define a notion of a holomorphic function on aBanach space over the field of complex numbers.
^Henrici, P. (1986) [1974, 1977].Applied and Computational Complex Analysis. Wiley. Three volumes, publ.: 1974, 1977, 1986.
^Ebenfelt, Peter; Hungerbühler, Norbert; Kohn, Joseph J.; Mok, Ngaiming; Straube, Emil J. (2011).Complex Analysis. Science & Business Media. Springer.ISBN978-3-0346-0009-5 – via Google.
^abMarkushevich, A.I. (1965).Theory of Functions of a Complex Variable. Prentice-Hall. [In three volumes.]
^The original French terms wereholomorphe andméromorphe.Briot, Charles Auguste;Bouquet, Jean-Claude (1875)."§15 fonctions holomorphes".Théorie des fonctions elliptiques (2nd ed.). Gauthier-Villars. pp. 14–15.Lorsqu'une fonction est continue, monotrope, et a une dérivée, quand la variable se meut dans une certaine partie du plan, nous dirons qu'elle estholomorphe dans cette partie du plan. Nous indiquons par cette dénomination qu'elle est semblable aux fonctions entières qui jouissent de ces propriétés dans toute l'étendue du plan. [...] ¶ Une fraction rationnelle admet comme pôles les racines du dénominateur; c'est une fonction holomorphe dans toute partie du plan qui ne contient aucun de ses pôles. ¶ Lorsqu'une fonction est holomorphe dans une partie du plan, excepté en certains pôles, nous dirons qu'elle estméromorphe dans cette partie du plan, c'est-à-dire semblable aux fractions rationnelles. [When a function is continuous,monotropic, and has a derivative, when the variable moves in a certain part of the [complex] plane, we say that it isholomorphic in that part of the plane. We mean by this name that it resemblesentire functions which enjoy these properties in the full extent of the plane. [...] ¶ A rational fraction admits aspoles theroots of the denominator; it is a holomorphic function in all that part of the plane which does not contain any poles. ¶ When a function is holomorphic in part of the plane, except at certain poles, we say that it ismeromorphic in that part of the plane, that is to say it resembles rational fractions.]Harkness, James;Morley, Frank (1893)."5. Integration".A Treatise on the Theory of Functions. Macmillan. p. 161.
^Briot & Bouquet had previously also adopted Cauchy’s termsynectic (synectique in French), in the 1859 first edition of their book.Briot, Charles Auguste;Bouquet, Jean-Claude (1859)."§10".Théorie des fonctions doublement périodiques. Mallet-Bachelier. p. 11.