TITLE: A more general case of the Laurent series expansion?
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I was recently reading about Laurent series for complex functions. I'm curious about a seemingly similar situation that came up in my reading.
Suppose $\Omega$ is a doubly connected region such that $\Omega^c$ (its complement) has two components $E_0$ and $E_1$. So if $f(z)$ is a complex, holomorphic function on $\Omega$, how can it be decomposed as $f=f_0(z)+f_1(z)$ where $f_0(z)$ is holomorphic outside $E_0$, and $f_1(z)$ is holomorphic outside $E_1$? Many thanks.

REPLY [5 votes]: I'll suppose both $E_0$ and $E_1$ are bounded.  Let $\Gamma_0$ and $\Gamma_1$ be disjoint positively-oriented simple closed contours in $\Omega$ enclosing $E_0$ and $E_1$ respectively, and $\Gamma_2$ a large positively-oriented circle enclosing both $\Gamma_0$ and $\Gamma_1$.  Let $\Omega_1$ be the region inside $\Gamma_2$ but outside $\Gamma_0$ and $\Gamma_1$.  Then for
$z \in \Omega_1$ we have by Cauchy's integral formula,
$$ f(z) = \frac{1}{2\pi i} \left( \int_{\Gamma_2} \frac{f(\zeta)\ d\zeta}{\zeta - z}
 - \int_{\Gamma_0} \frac{f(\zeta)\ d\zeta}{\zeta - z} - \int_{\Gamma_1} \frac{f(\zeta)\ d\zeta}{\zeta - z} \right)$$
If you're not familiar with this version of Cauchy's formula, you can draw thin "corridors" connecting $-\Gamma_0$, $-\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ into a single closed contour enclosing $z$.
If $$f_k(z) = \frac{1}{2\pi i}   \int_{\Gamma_k} \frac{f(\zeta)\ d\zeta}{\zeta - z}$$
 this says $f(z) = f_2(z) - f_0(z) - f_1(z)$, where $f_2(z)$ is analytic everywhere inside $\Gamma_2$, $f_0(z)$ is analytic everywhere outside $\Gamma_0$, and $f_1(z)$ is analytic everywhere outside $\Gamma_1$.  Moreover, the values of $f_k(z)$ don't depend on the choice of contours, as long as $z$ is inside $\Gamma_2$ and outside $\Gamma_0$ and $\Gamma_1$.  By making $\Gamma_2$ sufficiently large and
$\Gamma_0$ and $\Gamma_1$ sufficiently close to $E_0$ and $E_1$, any point in $\Omega$ can be included.  So we actually have $f(z) = f_2(z) - f_0(z) - f_1(z)$ everywhere in $\Omega$, with $f_2(z)$ entire, $f_0(z)$ analytic outside $E_0$ and $f_1(z)$ analytic outside $E_1$.