Dealing with complex integrals of a highly oscillatory type
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The following integral can be computed analytically using complex integration (required due to the pole at the origin):
![](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/338500/image.png)
However, if I try to evaluate this numerically, I run into trouble. Two approaches
1. Numerically: This is doomed to fail due to the function's behaviour at the origin.
fun = @(x) exp(1j*x)./x;
integral(fun,-inf,inf)
Warning: Reached the limit on the maximum number of intervals in use. Approximate bound on error
is 9.8e+00. The integral may not exist, or it may be difficult to approximate numerically to
the requested accuracy.
2. Symbolically: This gives the wrong answer and leaves a limit to be evaluated
syms x;
f(x) = exp(1j*x)/x;
int(f,[-inf,inf],'PrincipalValue',true)
ans =
- pi*1i + limit(- ei(-1i/eps27) + ei(1i/eps27), eps27, 0, 'Right')
What is the way to evaluating such integrals in matlab? I suspect the trouble is not at the origin, but at how the function is behaving (numerically) at the end points.
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Answers (1)
Alan Stevens
on 29 Jul 2020
I don't know in general, but for this particular integral, since cos(x)/x is odd, its contribution to the integral is zero and we can do the following:
>> syms x
>> I = i*int(sin(x)/x,-inf,inf)
I =
pi*1i
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