Solve Tricky Integral in "Plane Waves Viewed from an Accelerated Frame

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The forum discussion centers on solving a complex integral from the paper "Plane Waves Viewed from an Accelerated Frame" by K Srinivasan, L Sriramkumar, and T Padmanabhan. The integral in question is \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} e^{- i \Omega t} \cos \left( \beta - e^{a(\phi/\Omega-t)}\right) dt, which simplifies to a form involving the Gamma function. The user seeks clarification on the process of analytically continuing the integral in the complex plane, particularly regarding the path of integration and controlling contributions from poles.

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Jip
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Hi,
I'm working the following paper ""Plane waves viewed from an accelerated frame, K Srinivasan, L Sriramkumar, T Padmanabhan - Physical Review D, 1997"

and there's this integral:
<br /> \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty} e^{- i \Omega t} \cos \left( \beta - e^{a(\phi/\Omega-t)}\right) dt<br />
whose result seems to be
<br /> = \frac{e^{- i \phi}}{2 a}\Gamma\left(\frac{i \Omega}{a}\right) \left( e^{\Omega/4\Omega_0} e^{i \beta}+ e^{-\Omega/4\Omega_0} e^{-i \beta}\right)<br />
where \Omega_0 = a/2 \pi

Following the paper I changed variable z= e^{a(\phi/\Omega -t)}. The integral is then proportional to
<br /> \int_{0}^{\infty} z^{\frac{i \, \, \Omega}{a} -1}\left(e^{i (\beta -z)}+e^{-i (\beta -z)}\right) dz<br />

This is looking a bit a like a Gamma function. The paper then says "analytically continuing to I am z". This is not clear to me. Shall I integrate along some path in the complex plane? Which one? I tried along the first quadrant of C (between R+ and Im+), avoiding the pole in z=0, but its not clear to me how to control the contributions of the paths of very small radius of very large.

I could use some help! :)
Thanks
 
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Ok, seems that someone has to write something.. I have some idea, that will lead to the exact result, but I can't write you the whole process. In these works all you need is ability & fantasy.

This is what you have to do:

1) Call for simplicity $$\Delta = \frac{\phi}{\Omega}$$

2) Make the substitution $$y = \beta - e^{a(\Delta - t)}$$ so you will get $$t = \frac{\Delta a - \ln(\beta - y)}{a}$$ and your extrema will run from minus infinity to beta.

3) After you re arranged a bit, shift with $$y = \beta - p$$ with new extrema from $0$ to Infinity.

4) At this point you'll have to compute the integral $$\int_{0}^{\infty} \frac{\cos(\beta-p)}{p} e^{q\ln(p)}$$ where you wrote $$q = \frac{i\Omega}{a}$$

5) Done that and you'll get the result.
 

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