I haven't practiced limits for years, now I need them to solve an exercise and I don't know whether I have come up with the right solution.
lim
where a is a fixed constant.
Since I have the form \frac{\infty}{\infty}, I apply the De L'Hopital theorem, so I derive both numerator and denominator, so:
\lim_{n \to \infty}{\frac{an^{a-1}}{\frac{a}{n\log(n^a)}}} = \lim_{n \to \infty}{n\log(n^a)} = \lim_{n \to \infty}{a n\log(n)} = \infty
Can you please give me any feedback?
Answer
The expression is defined only for a\ne0, because for a=0 the denominator would have \log 0.
So, assume a>0; then you can rewrite the denominator as
\log(|\log n^a|)=\log(|a\log n|)=\log(|a|\log n)=\log|a|+\log\log n
(at least for n>1, which is implied).
Since both numerator and denominator go to infinity, you can apply l'Hôpital's theorem:
\lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{n^a}{\log|a|+\log\log n}= \lim_{n\to\infty}\frac{an^{a-1}}{\frac{1}{\log n}\frac{1}{n}}= \lim_{n\to\infty}an^{a-1}\cdot n\log n= \lim_{n\to\infty}an^a\log n
provided this last limit exists. Does it?
Don't forget to apply the chain rule when differentiating \log\log n.
For a<0 you have a slightly different, but easier, situation.
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