Joint use of the Weniger transformation and hyperasymptotics for accurate asymptotic evaluations of a class of saddle-point integrals

Abstract

When the Weniger transformation is systematically used in resumming the asymptotic series arising from the application of the steepest descent method can display dramatic numerical instabilities that prevent it from improving the accuracy achievable via superasymptotics. In the present paper an explanation of such pathologies through the concept of resurgence, introduced by Berry and Howls several years ago within the context of hyperasymptotics, is proposed. In particular, the way the topology of the whole set of the saddles influences the resummation capabilities of the Weniger transformation is here investigated for the integrals defining the lowest-order cuspoid diffraction catastrophes. Eventually, a powerful and easily implementable resummation scheme, based on a joint use of the Weniger transformation and hyperasymptotics, is proposed for taking care of the above pathologies. Such a joint action seems to encompass the main virtues of both approaches, and the preliminary numerical results obtained from its application show that relative errors several orders of magnitude smaller than those achievable via superasymptotics can be achieved with modest implementation efforts.