Meromorphic function with poles only at natural numbers

complex-analysis

By the Mittag-Leffler theorem, there exists a meromorphic function $f$ such that it has poles at all natural numbers and nowhere else. The problem is to directly construct such a function with residues at $n \in \mathbb{N}$ equal to the same number $n$. If $f$ is such a function, then $$f – \sum_{n=1}^{\infty}n(1/(z-n) + 1/n)$$ should be holomorphic, however, taking just $f=0$ doesn't quite work, because the harmonic series diverges. Can someone help me finish this construction?

Best Answer

You want a meromorphic function with poles exactly at the positive integers, and principal parts $$ \frac{n}{z-n} $$ at $z=n$. A common approach is to construct a series of the form $$ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{n}{z-n} - T_n(z) $$ where $T_n(z)$ is a Taylor polynomial of $\frac{n}{z-n}$ at $z=0$ of sufficiently high degree to make the series converge (uniformly on compact sets). Since $$ \frac{n}{z-n} = -1 - \frac{z}{n} - \frac{z^2}{n^2} -\ldots $$ we can choose $$ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{n}{z-n} +1 + \frac zn = \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{z^2}{(z-n)n} \, . $$ The series is convergent because the denominator grows quadratic in $n$.

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