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Re: Reasonable integration speed? (24 hrs and counting)

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg68084] Re: Reasonable integration speed? (24 hrs and counting)
  • From: axlq at spamcop.net (axlq)
  • Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:36:42 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <e9nkvm$9vo$1@smc.vnet.net> <e9qabo$8bl$1@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <e9qabo$8bl$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
Paul Abbott  <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>1. To paraphrase Barbie (http://www.sniggle.net/barbie.php), 
>"integration is hard". 

 :) That's why I downloaded a trial version of Mathematica.

>2. Let's break down your problem. First, the term involving p
>
>  Integrate[Cos[(2 n + 1) Pi x/d] p, {x, -d/2, d/2}]
>
>is trivial. Next, can you compute, or do you expect to be able to compute
>
>  Integrate[Cos[(2n + 1) Pi x/d] Exp[-I k f[x]], {x, -d/2, d/2}] ?
>
>This integral, even though it appears to be simple, is non-trivial. I 
>suspect that it can be computed via Bessel functions.

What I did was use Mathematica's Expand[] function to break down
the integrand into individual terms.  I got 13 terms, the first
of which was the trival one you describe above.  All the others
have one of these 6 forms:

c1 I Exp[-I k f]     Cos[c2 x] / f^5
c1 I Exp[-I k f] x   Cos[c2 x] / f^5
c1 I Exp[-I k f] x^2 Cos[c2 x] / f^5
c1 Exp[-I k f]     Cos[c2 x] / f^4
c1 Exp[-I k f] x   Cos[c2 x] / f^4
c1 Exp[-I k f] x^2 Cos[c2 x] / f^4

...where c1 and c2 are constants, and f = Sqrt[a^2+(q-x)^2].

As you said, these are non-trivial to solve.  Mathematica seems to
get hung up on any of them.

Thanks for the suggestions.  I think I will have to resort to
numerical integration for this one.  I was hoping to get a
closed-form solution.

This is eventually going into some Visual Basic code, in which I
have to manage the real and imaginary parts myself.

-Alex


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