Trigonometric integral

(Redirected from Nielsen's spiral)

In mathematics, trigonometric integrals are a family of nonelementary integrals involving trigonometric functions.

Plot of the hyperbolic sine integral function Shi(z) in the complex plane from −2 − 2i to 2 + 2i
Plot of the hyperbolic sine integral function Shi(z) in the complex plane from −2 − 2i to 2 + 2i

Si(x) (blue) and Ci(x) (green) shown on the same plot.
Integral sine in the complex plane, plotted with a variant of domain coloring.
Integral cosine in the complex plane. Note the branch cut along the negative real axis.

Sine integral

edit
 
Plot of Si(x) for 0 ≤ x ≤ 8π.
 
Plot of the cosine integral function Ci(z) in the complex plane from −2 − 2i to 2 + 2i

The different sine integral definitions are    

Note that the integrand   is the sinc function, and also the zeroth spherical Bessel function. Since sinc is an even entire function (holomorphic over the entire complex plane), Si is entire, odd, and the integral in its definition can be taken along any path connecting the endpoints.

By definition, Si(x) is the antiderivative of sin x / x whose value is zero at x = 0, and si(x) is the antiderivative whose value is zero at x = ∞. Their difference is given by the Dirichlet integral,  

In signal processing, the oscillations of the sine integral cause overshoot and ringing artifacts when using the sinc filter, and frequency domain ringing if using a truncated sinc filter as a low-pass filter.

Related is the Gibbs phenomenon: If the sine integral is considered as the convolution of the sinc function with the heaviside step function, this corresponds to truncating the Fourier series, which is the cause of the Gibbs phenomenon.

Cosine integral

edit
 
Plot of Ci(x) for 0 < x ≤ 8π

The different cosine integral definitions are     where γ ≈ 0.57721566 ... is the Euler–Mascheroni constant. Some texts use ci instead of Ci.

Ci(x) is the antiderivative of cos x / x (which vanishes as  ). The two definitions are related by  

Cin is an even, entire function. For that reason, some texts treat Cin as the primary function, and derive Ci in terms of Cin.

Hyperbolic sine integral

edit

The hyperbolic sine integral is defined as  

It is related to the ordinary sine integral by  

Hyperbolic cosine integral

edit

The hyperbolic cosine integral is

 
Plot of the hyperbolic cosine integral function Chi(z) in the complex plane from −2 − 2i to 2 + 2i

  where   is the Euler–Mascheroni constant.

It has the series expansion  

Auxiliary functions

edit

Trigonometric integrals can be understood in terms of the so-called "auxiliary functions"   Using these functions, the trigonometric integrals may be re-expressed as (cf. Abramowitz & Stegun, p. 232)  

Nielsen's spiral

edit
 
Nielsen's spiral.

The spiral formed by parametric plot of si, ci is known as Nielsen's spiral.    

The spiral is closely related to the Fresnel integrals and the Euler spiral. Nielsen's spiral has applications in vision processing, road and track construction and other areas.[1]

Expansion

edit

Various expansions can be used for evaluation of trigonometric integrals, depending on the range of the argument.

Asymptotic series (for large argument)

edit

   

These series are asymptotic and divergent, although can be used for estimates and even precise evaluation at ℜ(x) ≫ 1.

Convergent series

edit

   

These series are convergent at any complex x, although for |x| ≫ 1, the series will converge slowly initially, requiring many terms for high precision.

Derivation of series expansion

edit

From the Maclaurin series expansion of sine:      

Relation with the exponential integral of imaginary argument

edit

The function   is called the exponential integral. It is closely related to Si and Ci,  

As each respective function is analytic except for the cut at negative values of the argument, the area of validity of the relation should be extended to (Outside this range, additional terms which are integer factors of π appear in the expression.)

Cases of imaginary argument of the generalized integro-exponential function are   which is the real part of  

Similarly  

Efficient evaluation

edit

Padé approximants of the convergent Taylor series provide an efficient way to evaluate the functions for small arguments. The following formulae, given by Rowe et al. (2015),[2] are accurate to better than 10−16 for 0 ≤ x ≤ 4,  

The integrals may be evaluated indirectly via auxiliary functions   and  , which are defined by

   
or equivalently
   

For   the Padé rational functions given below approximate   and   with error less than 10−16:[2]

 

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Gray (1993). Modern Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces. Boca Raton. p. 119.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ a b Rowe, B.; et al. (2015). "GALSIM: The modular galaxy image simulation toolkit". Astronomy and Computing. 10: 121. arXiv:1407.7676. Bibcode:2015A&C....10..121R. doi:10.1016/j.ascom.2015.02.002. S2CID 62709903.

Further reading

edit
edit