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A curve A is said to be an asymptote of curve B when the following is true: for any arbitrary positive value d,
(1) There exist points on A beyond which the distance from A to B never exceeds d
(2) There exist points on B beyond which the distance from B to A never exceeds d.
In other words, as one moves along B in some direction, the distance between it and the asymptote A eventually becomes smaller than any distance that one may specify.

If a curve C has the curve L as an asymptote, one says that C is asymptotic to L.

Contents 1 Asymptotes, graphs and definitions 1.1 Meaning 1.2 Multiple asymptotes, intersection 2 Linear asymptotes 2.1 Horizontal asymptotes 2.2 Vertical asymptotes 2.3 Oblique asymptotes 3 Nonlinear asymptotes 4 Elementary methods for identifying linear asymptotes 4.1 Rational functions 4.2 Translations of known functions 5 See also

Asymptotes are formally defined using limits. There are many different cases that can be treated separately, such as linear asymptotes (below), although intuitively the two functions become arbitrarily close.

A specific example of linear asymptotes can be found in the graph of the function f(x) = 1/x, in which two asymptotes are seen: the horizontal line y = 0 and the vertical line x = 0.

There are multiple ways of interpreting asymptotic behavior. In particular the statement "A function f(x) is said to be asymptotic to a function g(x) as x → ∞" has any of at least three distinct meanings:

1. f(x) − g(x) → 0.
2. f(x) / g(x) → 1.
3. f(x) / g(x) has a nonzero limit.

A function may have multiple asymptotes, of different or the same kind. One such function with a horizontal, vertical, and oblique asymptote is graphed to the right above.

In particular a function y = ƒ(x) can have at most 2 horizontal or 2 oblique asymptotes (or one of each). There may be any number of vertical asymptotes, such as y=tan(x)

A curve may cross its asymptote repeatedly or may never actually coincide with it. A curve may have multiple asymptotes. Further, it may even intersect an asymptote infinitely many times, as graphed to the left.

Suppose f is a function. Then the line y = a is a horizontal asymptote for f if

Intuitively, this means that f(x) can be made as close as desired to a by making x big enough. How big is big enough depends on how close one wishes to make f(x) to a. This means that far out on the curve, the curve will be close to the line.

Note that if

then the graph of f has two horizontal asymptotes: y = a and y = b. An example of such a function is the arctangent function.

Another example would be ƒ(x)=1/(x²+1), which has a horiztonal asmyptote at y=0, as can be seen by the limit

The line x = a is a vertical asymptote of a function f if either of the following conditions is true:

1. 
2. 

Intuitively, if x = a is an asymptote of f, then, if we imagine x approaching a from one side, the value of f(x) grows without bound; i.e., f(x) becomes large (positively or negatively), and, in fact, becomes larger than any finite value.

Note that f(x) may or may not be defined at a: what the function is doing precisely at x = a does not affect the asymptote. For example, consider the function

As , f(x) has a vertical asymptote at 0, even though f(0) = 5.

Another example is ƒ(x) = 1/(x-1) which has a vertical asymptote of x=1 as shown by the limit

When an asymptote is not parallel to the x- or y-axis, it is called either an oblique asymptote or slant asymptote. If y = mx + b, is any non-vertical line, then the function f(x) is asymptotic to it if

An example is ƒ(x)=(x²-1)/x which has an oblique asmyptote of y=x as seen in the limit

Computationally identifying an oblique asymptote can be more difficult than a horizontal or vertical asymptote, in particular because the m and b might not be known. It is typical to evaluate the appropriate limit and choose m, b so that it exists. For example, to find the oblique asymptote of y=25(x³+2x²+3x+4)/(5x²+6x+7), one can evaluate the limit

So the oblique asymptote is y=5x+4.

Curves may be asymptotic to each other without either being linear. In this case the general characterizations are typically necessary. For example, (x³+2x²+3x+4)/(x) is asymptotic to x²+2x+3 because of the limit

Also, (e^x)/(2x+1) is asymptotic to (e^x)/x because of the limit

However, e^x is not asymptotic to (e^x)/x because of the limit

Asymptotes of many elementary functions can be found without the explicit use of limits (although the derivations of such methods typically use limits).

A rational function has at most one horizontal asymptote or oblique (slant) asymptote, and possibly many vertical asymptotes.

The degree of the numerator and degree of the denominator determine whether or not there are any horizontal or oblique asymptotes. The cases are tabulated below, where deg(numerator) is the degree of the numerator, and deg(denominator) is the degree of the denominator.

Table listing the cases of horizontal and oblique asymptotes for rational functions

deg(numerator) - deg(denominator)	Horizontal/oblique asymptotes	Example, asymptote
<0	y=0
0	y="ratio of leading coefficients"
1	1 oblique
>0	None

In the case of an oblique asymptote, the asymptote is the polynomial term after dividing the numerator and denominator. For example,

The vertical asymptotes occur only when the denominator is zero (If both the numerator and denominator are zero, the multiplicities of the zero are compared). For example, the following function has vertical asymptotes at x=0, and x=1, but not at x=2

If a known function has an asymptote (such as y=0 for f(x)=e^x), then the translations of it also have an asymptote.

• If x=a is a horizontal asymptote of f(x), then x=a+k is a horizontal asymptote of f(x-h)+k
• If y=b is a vertical asymptote of f(x), then y=b+h is a vertical asymptote of f(x-h)+k

For example, f(x)=e^x-1+2 has horizontal asymptote y=0+2=2, and no vertical or oblique asymptotes.

• Asymptotic analysis
• Asymptotic curve
• Big O notation