Resurgent extrapolation: rebuilding a function from asymptotic data. Painlevé I

Abstract

Extrapolation is a generic problem in physics and mathematics: how to use asymptotic data in one parametric regime to learn about the behavior of a function in another parametric regime. For example: extending weak coupling expansions to strong coupling, or high temperature expansions to low temperature, or vice versa. Such extrapolations are particularly interesting in systems possessing dualities. Here we study numerical procedures for performing such an extrapolation, combining ideas from resurgent asymptotics with well-known techniques of Borel summation, Padé approximants and conformal mapping. We illustrate the method with the concrete example of the Painlevé I equation, which has applications in many branches of physics and mathematics. Starting solely with a finite number of coefficients from asymptotic data at infinity on the positive real line, we obtain a high precision extrapolation of the function throughout the complex plane, even across the phase transition into the pole region. The precision far exceeds that of state-of-the-art numerical integration methods along the real axis. Furthermore, the methods used are both elementary and general, not relying on Painlevé integrability properties, and so are applicable to a wide class of extrapolation problems.