Poles at $s=0$

We know from the above that the denominator of the cone reflectance has at least one root at $s=0$ . In this subsection we investigate this ``dc behavior'' of the cone more thoroughly.

A hasty analysis based on the reflection and transmission filters in Equations (C.175) and (C.176) might conclude that the reflectance of the conical cap converges to $-1$ at dc, since $R(0)=-1$ and $T(0)=0$ . However, this would be incorrect. Instead, it is necessary to take the limit as $\omega\to0$ of the complete conical cap reflectance $R_J(s)$ :

$$R_J(s) = \frac{1 - e^{-2s} - 2s e^{-2s}}{2s - 1 + e^{-2s}}$$ (C.186)

We already discovered a root at $s=0$ in the denominator in the context of the preceding stability proof. However, note that the numerator also goes to zero at $s=0$ . This indicates a pole-zero cancellation at dc. To find the reflectance at dc, we may use L'Hospital's rule to obtain

$$R_J(0) = \lim_{s\to0} \frac{N^\prime(s)}{D^\prime(s)} = \lim_{s\to 0}\frac{4s e^{-2s}}{2-2e^{-2s}}$$ (C.187)

and once again the limit is an indeterminate $0/0$ form. We therefore apply L'Hospital's rule again to obtain

$$R_J(0) = \lim_{s\to0} \frac{N^{\prime\prime}(s)}{D^{\prime\prime}(s)} = \lim_{s\to 0}\frac{(4-8s) e^{-2s}}{4e^{-2s}} = +1$$ (C.188)

Thus, two poles and zeros cancel at dc, and the dc reflectance is $+1$ , not $-1$ as an analysis based only on the scattering filters would indicate. From a physical point of view, it makes more sense that the cone should ``look like'' a simple rigid termination of the cylinder at dc, since its length becomes small compared with the wavelength in the limit.

Another method of showing this result is to form a Taylor series expansion of the numerator and denominator:

$$N(s) = 2 s^2 - \frac{8 s^3}{3} + 2 s^4 + \cdots$$ (C.189)

$$D(s) = 2 s^2 - \frac{4 s^3}{3} + \frac{2 s^4}{3} + \cdots$$ (C.190)

Both series begin with the term $2s^2$ which means both the numerator and denominator have two roots at $s=0$ . Hence, again the conclusion is two pole-zero cancellations at dc. The series for the conical cap reflectance can be shown to be

$$R_J(s) = 1 - \frac{2 s}{3} + \frac{2 s^2}{9} - \frac{4 s^3}{135} - \frac{2 s^4}{405} + \cdots$$ (C.191)

which approaches $+1$ as $s\to0$ .

An alternative analysis of this issue is given by Benade in [37].