Euler-Maclaurin formula
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In mathematics, the Euler-Maclaurin formula provides a powerful connection between integrals (see calculus) and sums. It can be used to approximate integrals by finite sums, or conversely to evaluate finite sums and infinite series using integrals and the machinery of calculus. The formula was discovered independently by Leonhard Euler and Colin Maclaurin around 1735. Euler needed it to compute slowly converging infinite series while Maclaurin used it to calculate integrals.
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[edit] The formula
If n is a natural number and f(x) is a smooth (meaning: sufficiently often differentiable) function defined for all real numbers x between 0 and n, then the integral
can be approximated by the sum
(see trapezoidal rule). The Euler-Maclaurin formula provides expressions for the difference between the sum and the integral in terms of the higher derivatives f(k) at the end points of the interval 0 and n. For any natural number p, we have
where B1 = −1/2, B2 = 1/6, B3 = 0, B4 = −1/30, B5 = 0, B6 = 1/42, B7 = 0, B8 = −1/30, ... are the Bernoulli numbers, and R is an error term which is normally small for suitable values of p.
By employing the substitution rule, one can adapt this formula also to functions f which are defined on some other interval of the real line.
[edit] The remainder term
The remainder term R is given by
where are the periodic Bernoulli polynomials. The remainder term can be estimated as
[edit] Applications
If f is a polynomial and p is big enough, then the remainder term vanishes. For instance, if f(x) = x3, we can choose p = 2 to obtain after simplification
(see Faulhaber's formula).
With the function f(x) = log(x), the Euler-Maclaurin formula can be used to derive precise error estimates for Stirling's approximation of the factorial function.
The Euler-Maclaurin formula is also used for detailed error analysis in numerical quadrature; in particular, extrapolation methods depend on it.
[edit] Proofs
[edit] Derivation by mathematical induction
We follow the argument given in (Apostol) (see References below).
The Bernoulli polynomials Bn(x), n = 0, 1, 2, ... may be defined recursively as follows:
The first several of these are
The values Bn(1) are the Bernoulli numbers. For n ≥ 2, we have Bn(0) = Bn(1).
The periodic Bernoulli functions Pn are given by
i.e., they agree with the Bernoulli polynomials on the interval (0, 1) and are periodic with period 1.
Consider the integral
where
Integrating by parts, we get
Summing from k = 1 to k = n − 1, we get
Adding to both sides and rearranging, we have
The last two terms therefore give the error when the integral is taken to approximate the sum.
Now consider
where
Integrating by parts again, we get,
Then summing from k = 1 to k = n − 1, and then replacing the last integral in (1) with what we have thus shown to be equal to it, we have
By now the reader will have guessed that this process can be iterated. In this way we get a proof of the Euler-Maclaurin summation formula by mathematical induction, in which the induction step relies on integration by parts and on the identities for periodic Bernoulli functions.
In order to get bounds on the size of the error when the sum is approximated by the integral, we note that the Bernoulli polynomials on the interval [0, 1] attain their maximum absolute values at the endpoints (see D.H. Lehmer in References below), and the value Bn(1) is the nth Bernoulli number.
[edit] Derivation by functional analysis
The Euler-MacLaurin formula can be understood as a curious application of some ideas from Hilbert spaces and functional analysis. Let Bn(x) be the Bernoulli polynomials. A set of functions dual to the Bernoulli polynomials are given by
where δ is the Dirac delta function. The above is a formal notation for the idea of taking derivatives at a point; thus one has
for n > 0 and some arbitrary but differentiable function f(x) on the unit interval. For the case of n = 0, one defines . The Bernoulli polynomials, along with their duals, form an orthogonal set of states on the unit interval: one has
and
The Euler-MacLaurin summation formula then follows as an integral over the latter. One has
Then taking x = 0, and rearranging terms, one obtains the traditional formula, together with the error term. Note that the Bernoulli numbers are defined as Bn = Bn(0), and that these vanish for odd n greater than 1. Note that this derivation does assume that f(x) is sufficiently differentiable and well-behaved; specifically, that f may be approximated by polynomials; equivalently, that f is a real analytic function.
The Euler-MacLaurin summation formula can thus be seen to be an outcome of the representation of functions on the unit interval by the direct product of the Bernoulli polynomials and their duals. Note, however, that the representation is not complete on the set of square-integrable functions. The expansion in terms of the Bernoulli polynomials has a non-trivial kernel. In particular, sin(2πnx) lies in the kernel; the integral of sin(2πnx) is vanishing on the unit interval, as is the difference of its derivatives at the endpoints.
[edit] References
- Tom M. Apostol, "An Elementary View of Euler's Summation Formula", American Mathematical Monthly, volume 106, number 5, pages 409—418 (May 1999). DOI:10.2307/2589145.
- Pierre Gaspard, "r-adic one-dimensional maps and the Euler summation formula", Journal of Physics A, 25 (letter) L483-L485 (1992). (Describes the eigenfunctions of the transfer operator for the Bernoulli map)
- Xavier Gourdon and Pascal Sebah, Introduction on Bernoulli's numbers, (2002)
- D.H. Lehmer, "On the Maxima and Minima of Bernoulli Polynomials", American Mathematical Monthly, volume 47, pages 533–538 (1940)