The asymptotics of the Touchard polynomials

We examine the asymptotic expansion of the Touchard polynomials $T_n(z)$ (also known as the exponential polynomials) for large $n$ and complex values of the variable $z$. In our treatment $|z|$ may be finite or allowed to be large like $O(n)$. We employ the method of steepest descents to a suitable integral representation of $T_n(z)$ and find that the number of saddle points that contribute to the expansion depends on the values of $n$ and $z$. Numerical results are given to illustrate the accuracy of the various expansions.