Definition:Staircase Contour

Definition

Let $C$ be a contour that is a concatenation of the directed smooth curves $C_1, \ldots, C_n$.

For all $i \in \set {1, \ldots, n}$, let it be possible for $C_i$ be parameterized by a smooth path $\gamma_i: \closedint 0 1 \to \C$ such that either:

$\map {\gamma_i} t = z_i + t r_i$

or

$\map {\gamma_i} t = z_i + i t r_i$

for some $z_i \in \C, r_i \in \R$ for all $t \in \closedint 0 1$.

Then $C$ is called a staircase contour.

Illustration

Sources

• 2001: Christian Berg: Kompleks funktionsteori $\S 2.3$