TITLE: Can there be a power series that converges for all reals but not for the complex numbers?
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: Let $z = x + i y$, and consider the following function:
$$
f(z) = e^{\frac{1}{1 + z^2}} \qquad z \in \mathbb{C}
$$
Note that at $z = \pm i$ the function does not converge.
We see that on $\mathbb{R}$ when $y = 0$, this becomes:
$$
f(x) = e^{\frac{1}{1 + x^2}} \qquad x \in \mathbb{R},
$$
which converges nicely for all values $x \in \mathbb{R}$.
Furthermore, this function is analytic on $\mathbb{R}$, and so there exists some power series of form:
$$
f(x) = \sum_{n = 0}^{\infty} a_n (x - x_0)^n \qquad a_n, x, x_0 \in \mathbb{R}
$$
that converges for all $x \in \mathbb{R}$.
Does this power series naturally extend to the complex plane if we have $x \mapsto z$, i.e.:
$$
f(z) = \sum_{n = 0}^{\infty} b_n (z - z_0)^n \qquad z \in \mathbb{C}, \quad z_0 = x_0 + i0, \quad b_n = a_n + i 0
$$
In this case, would the function shown above thus demonstrate that a complex-valued power series that converges on all of $\mathbb{R}$ not necessarily converge in $\mathbb{C}$?

REPLY [6 votes]: No. You might have heard the term "radius of convergence" before - in this case, that isn't an abuse of language. Power series converge within open disks in the complex plane, and the radius of convergence is the distance to the nearest singularity. In this case, since you require your series to converge on $\mathbb{R}$, the radius of convergence would have to be $\infty$, so that the series would converge on all of $\mathbb{C}$

REPLY [4 votes]: It is easy to prove that if a power series converges for some $z_1\ne 0$, then it converges absolutely for every complex $z$ with $|z|<|z_1|$:
In order for the the power series to converge at $z_1$, the sequence $|a_nz_1^n|$ must go to $0$ -- in particular it must be bounded by some number $K$. We then have that
$$ |a_nz^n| = \left| \frac{z}{z_1} \right|^n \cdot |a_nz_1^n| \le K\left|\frac{z}{z_1} \right|^n $$
so the terms of the power series at $z$ are bounded by a geometric sequence with common factor $\left|\frac{z}{z_1}\right|$ which is assumed to be $<1$. This forces the partial sums of the power series at $z$ to be a Cauchy sequence, and therefore it converges.
In particular we can let $z_1$ be real, so if a power series converges for all reals, it will necessarily also converge on all of $\mathbb C$.