This book describes and illustrates the application of several asymptotic methods that have proved useful in the authors' research in electromagnetics and antennas. We first define asymptotic approximations and expansions and explain these concepts in detail. We then develop certain prerequisites from complex analysis such as power series, multivalued functions (including the concepts of branch points and branch cuts), and the all-important gamma function. Of particular importance is the idea of analytic continuation (of functions of a single complex variable); our discussions here include some recent, direct applications to antennas and computational electromagnetics. Then, specific methods are discussed. These include integration by parts and the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma, the use of contour integration in conjunction with other methods, techniques related to Laplace's method and Watson's lemma, the asymptotic behavior of certain Fourier sine and cosine transforms, and the Poisson summation formula (including its version for finite sums). Often underutilized in the literature are asymptotic techniques based on the Mellin transform; our treatment of this subject complements the techniques presented in our recent Synthesis Lecture on the exact (not asymptotic) evaluation of integrals.

This book introduces the Mellin-transform method for the exact calculation of one-dimensional definite integrals, and illustrates the application if this method to electromagnetics problems. Once the basics have been mastered, one quickly realizes that the method is extremely powerful, often yielding closed-form expressions very difficult to come up with other methods or to deduce from the usual tables of integrals. Yet, as opposed to other methods, the present method is very straightforward to apply; it usually requires laborious calculations, but little ingenuity. Two functions, the generalized hypergeometric function and the Meijer G-function, are very much related to the Mellin-transform method and arise frequently when the method is applied. Because these functions can be automatically handled by modern numerical routines, they are now much more useful than they were in the past. The Mellin-transform method and the two aforementioned functions are discussed first. Then the method is applied in three examples to obtain results, which, at least in the antenna/electromagnetics literature, are believed to be new. In the first example, a closed-form expression, as a generalized hypergeometric function, is obtained for the power radiated by a constant-current circular-loop antenna. The second example concerns the admittance of a 2-D slot antenna. In both these examples, the exact closed-form expressions are applied to improve upon existing formulas in standard antenna textbooks. In the third example, a very simple expression for an integral arising in recent, unpublished studies of unbounded, biaxially anisotropic media is derived. Additional examples are also briefly discussed.