circuit analysis - Why don't phasors give the transient state?

I don't understand why phasor analysis doesn't tell us anything about the transient state. At exactly what part of the analysis is the transient part "lost"?

Answer

Phasor analysis allows us to analyze a circuit's response to a sinusoidal steady-state response at a given single frequency. We represent a time-domain voltage \$V(t) = V_{0}cos(\omega t + \phi)\$ in phasor form by transforming it into a complex exponential via Euler's formula...

$$A\cos(\omega t + \phi) = Re\{Ae^{j( \omega t~+~\phi)}\} = Re\{Ae^{j\phi}e^{j\omega t}\}$$

...and then ignoring the frequency/time dependence (since we assume everything in the circuit is excited by a steady sinusoid of the same frequency). Thus,

$$V= Ae^{j\phi}$$

This \$V\$ is what we call a phasor. We can represent any current or voltage as a phasor. In order to recover a time-domain representation from a phasor, you can multiply it by \$e^{j\omega t}\$ and then take the real part. Note that sometimes for the sake of brevity/familiarity in calculating power, we also convert the amplitude of the phasor into RMS values (divide magnitude by \$\sqrt{2}\$ for a sinusoid). Phasors allow us to use analogous DC analysis techniques to recover transfer functions of linear circuits (by using impedances). Using superposition, we can use Fourier analysis to analyze a circuit's complete steady-state response as a sum of its steady-state response due to different frequency components.

It's useful to note the relation of phasors to the Laplace representation of a circuit. The Laplace representation of a circuit uses the variable \$s = \sigma + j\omega\$. Note that for \$\sigma = 0\$, the transfer function of the Laplace representation of a circuit reduces down to the phasor representation. This is a good indication that the real part of \$s\$ represents a transient response (and this can be easily observed by noting that \$e^{at}\$ for any real \$a\$ will result in a real value that either exponentially grows or decays). Note that the Laplace representation is a more general representation of a circuit that includes both transient and steady-state responses. Likewise, it's good to note that the Fourier transform is just a special case of the more general Laplace transform (the case where \$\sigma = 0\$ in \$s = j\omega\$).