Narrow Results

There are now several ways to derive an asymptotic expansion for , as n → ∞, which holds uniformly for . One of these starts with a contour integral, involves a transformation which takes this integral into a canonical form, and makes repeated use of an integration-by-parts technique. There are two advantages to this approach: (i) it provides a recursive formula for calculating the coefficients in the expansion, and (ii) it leads to an explicit expression for the error term. In this paper, we point out that the estimate for the error term given previously is not sufficient for the expansion to be regarded as genuinely uniform for θ near the origin, when one takes into account the behavior of the coefficients near θ = 0. Our purpose here is to use an alternative method to estimate the remainder. First, we show that the coefficients in the expansion are bounded for . Next, we give an estimate for the error term which is of the same order as the first neglected term.

Two asymptotic expansions are obtained for the Laguerre polynomial for large n and fixed α > −1. These expansions are uniformly valid in two overlapping intervals covering the entire x-axis. The leading terms of both agree with the two asymptotic formulas given by Erdélyi who used the theory of differential equations. Our approach is based on two integral representations for the Laguerre polynomials. The phase function of one of these integrals has two coalescing saddle points, and to this one the cubic transformation introduced by Chester, Friedman, and Ursell is applied. The phase function of the other integral also has two coalescing saddle points, but in addition it has a simple pole. Moreover, the saddle points coalesce onto this pole. In this case a rational transformation is used, which mimics the singular behavior of the phase function. In both cases explicit expressions are given for the remainders associated with the asymptotic expansions.

Consider the double integral