Journal of Mathematical Modeling Vol. 7, No. 2, 2019, pp. 221-229 JMM On some applicable approximations of Gaussian type integrals Christophe Chesneauy∗ and Fabien Navarroz yLMNO, University of Caen, Caen, France email: [email protected] zCREST, ENSAI, Rennes, France Emails: [email protected], [email protected] Abstract. In this paper, we introduce new applicable approximations for Gaussian type integrals. A key ingredient is the approximation of the func- tion e−x2 by the sum of three simple polynomial-exponential functions. Five special Gaussian type integrals are then considered as applications. Approximation of the so-called Voigt error function is investigated. Keywords: Exponential approximation, Gauss integral type function, Voigt error function. AMS Subject Classification: 26A09, 33E20, 41A30. 1 Motivation Gaussian type integrals play a central role in various branches of mathemat- ics (probability theory, statistics, theory of errors . ) and physics (heat and mass transfer, atmospheric science . ). The most famous example of this class of integrals is the Gauss error function defined by y 2 Z 2 erf(y) = p e−x dx: π 0 As for the erf(y), plethora of useful Gaussian type integral have no an- alytical expression. For this reason, a lot of approximations have been ∗Corresponding author. Received: 26 March 2019 / Revised: 28 May 2019 / Accepted: 28 May 2019. DOI: 10.22124/jmm.2019.12897.1250 c 2019 University of Guilan http://jmm.guilan.ac.ir 222 C. Chesneau, F. Navarro developed, more or less complicated, with more or less precision (for the erf(y) function, see [6] and the references therein). In this paper, we aim to provide acceptable and applicable approxi- mations for possible sophisticated Gaussian type integrals. We follow the simple approach of [1] which consists in expressing the function e−x2 as a finite sum of N functions having a more tractable polynomial-exponential n −βnjxj form: αnjxj e , where αn and βn are real numbers and n 2 f0;:::;Ng, i.e., N 2 −x X n −βnjxj e ≈ αnjxj e : n=0 The challenge is to choose α0; : : : ; αN and β0; : : : ; βN such that the rest function N 2 −x X n −βnjxj (x) = e − αnjxj e n=0 is supposed to be small: j(x)j 1. With such a choice, for a function g(x; t), the following approximation is acceptable: +1 N +1 Z 2 Z −x X n −βnjxj g(x; t)e dx ≈ αn jxj e g(x; t)dx; −∞ n=0 −∞ assuming that the integrals exist and with the idea in mind that the inte- gral terms in the sum have analytical expressions. Considering N = 1, it is shown in [1] that, for γ = 2:75, we have e−x2 ≈ e−2γjxj + 2γjxje−γjxj, so α0 = 1, α1 = 2γ, β0 = 2γ, β1 = γ. With this set of coefficients, [1] shown −x2 −2γjxj −γjxj that the rest function 1(x) = e − e + 2γjxje has a reason- ably small magnitude: j1(x)j < 0:032 (value obtained using the Faddeeva Package [3] which includes a wrapper for Matlab). Using this result, [1] shows a simple rational approximation a Gaussian type integral, named the Voigt error function. Contrary to more accurate approximations, it has the advantage to be simple and very useful for rapid computation when dealing with large-scale data. In this study, we propose to explore this ap- proach by considering an additional polynomial-exponential function, with polynomials of degree 2; the case N = 2 is considered. We determine suit- able coefficients α0; α1; α2 and β0; β1; β2 to obtain a rest function with a smaller magnitude to the one of 1(x) evaluated by [1]. We then use this approximation to show applicable approximations for complex Gaussian type integrals, including the Voigt error function. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present our ap- proximation results. Applications are given for the Voigt error function in Section 3. Concluding remarks are given in Section 4. On some applicable approximations of Gaussian type integrals 223 2 Gaussian integral type approximations 2.1 Approximation result Our main result is the following approximation. Claim. The following approximation for e−x2 is sharp: 2 2 −x X n −βnjxj e ≈ αnjxj e ; (1) n=0 2 with α0 = 1, α1 = 4θ, α2 = 4θ , β0 = 4θ, β1 = 3θ, β2 = 2θ and θ = 1:885. One can notice that the definitions of α0, α1, α2, β0, β1 and β2 are such that 2 2 e−x ≈ e−4θjxj + 4θjxje−3θjxj + 4θ2x2e−2θjxj = e−2θjxj + 2θjxje−θjxj : (2) The sharpness of our approximation can be shown in various ways. In particular, one can show that the rest function given by −x2 2 2 −2θjxj −3θjxj −4θjxj 2(x) = e − 4θ x e + 4θjxje + e has a reasonably small magnitude; we have j2(x)j < 0:018 (using the same reference code). Note that the upper bound 0:018 is (near twice) smaller to the upper bound of j1(x)j studied in [1]. Superposition of the rest functions 1(x) and 2(x) is given in Figure 1. We see that for a small interval around 0, the error 1(x) is smaller to R 5 2(x), but 2(x) is globally the smallest. Indeed, we have −5 j2(x)jdx ≈ R 5 0:05240866 with an absolute error less than 0:00012 against −5 j1(x)jdx ≈ 0:1050965 with an absolute error less than 0:00011. Also, let us mention that exponential of a homogeneous polynomial can be approximate in a similar way by using composition. For instance, for e−x4 , we can write 2 2 2 4 2 p −x X 2n −βnx X X m=2 m+2n −βm βnjxj e ≈ αnx e ; ≈ αnαmβn jxj e : n=0 n=0 m=0 2.2 Approximation of Gaussian type integrals It follows from (1) that, for a wide class of functions g(x; t), we have the following integral approximation: +1 2 +1 Z 2 Z −x X n −βnjxj g(x; t)e dx ≈ αn jxj e g(x; t)dx: −∞ n=0 −∞ 224 C. Chesneau, F. Navarro 0.02 0.01 0 -0.01 -0.02 -0.03 -5 0 5 Figure 1: Graphical comparison of 1(x) and 2(x). We propose to use this result to approximate several nontrivial Gaussian type integrals (define on the semi-finite interval (0; +1)). Most of them do not have a close form and do not belong to the list of Gaussian-type integrals by [4]. Let ν > −1, µ ≥ 0 and p ≥ 0. Then, it follows from (1) that 2 2 −px X n −βn;pjxj e ≈ αn;pjxj e ; n=0 p p p with α = 1, α = 4θ p, α = 4θ2p, β = 4θ p, β = 3θ p, 0;pp 1;p 2;p 0;p 1;p β2;p = 2θ p and θ = 1:885: Then, we have the following approximations, provided chosen ν, µ and p such that the integrals exist: Integral approximation I. Using our approximation and [5, Case 3, Sub- section 5.3], we have Z +1 2 2 X Γ(n + ν + 1) xνe−µxe−px dx ≈ α : n;p (β + µ)n+ν+1 0 n=0 n;p Integral approximation II. Using our approximation and [5, Case 7, Subsection 5.5], we have Z +1 2 2 X Γ(n + ν + 1) xν ln(x)e−px dx ≈ α [ (n + ν + 1) − ln(β )] ; n;p (β )n+ν+1 n;p 0 n=0 n;p On some applicable approximations of Gaussian type integrals 225 where (x) is the digamma function, i.e., the logarithmic derivative of the gamma function. Integral approximation III. Using our approximation and [5, Case 12, Subsection 5.3], we have Z +1 2 (ν+n+1)=2 ν − µ −px2 X µ p x e x e dx ≈ α 2 K (2 µβ ); n;p β n+ν+1 n;p 0 n=0 n;p where Ka(x) is the modified Bessel function of the second kind with pa- rameter a. Integral approximation IV. Using our approximation and [5, Case 7, Subsection 7.3], we have +1 Z 2 xν cos(υx)e−µxe−px dx ≈ 0 2 X 2 2−(n+ν+1)=2 αn;pΓ(n + ν + 1) (βn;p + µ) + υ × n=0 υ cos (ν + n + 1) arctan : (3) βn;p + µ Let us remark that if we take υ = 0, we rediscover Integral approximation I. Integral approximation V. Using our approximation and [5, Case 8, Subsection 8.3], we have +1 Z 2 xν sin(υx)e−µxe−px dx ≈ 0 2 X 2 2−(n+ν+1)=2 αn;pΓ(n + ν + 1) (βn;p + µ) + υ × n=0 υ sin (ν + n + 1) arctan : (4) βn;p + µ These approximations can be useful in many domains of applied math- ematics. In the next section, we illustrate the approximations (3) and (4) by investigate approximation of the Voigt error function, also considered in [1] for comparison. Note that given the approximation of e−x2 , one can also compute Fresnel integrals, and similar related functions as well, such as other complex error functions. 226 C. Chesneau, F. Navarro 3 Application to the Voigt error function The Voigt error function can be defined as w(x; y) = K(x; y)+iL(x; y); x 2 R and y > 0, where Z 1 2 1 − t −yt K(x; y) = p e 4 e cos(xt)dt; π 0 Z 1 2 1 − t −yt L(x; y) = p e 4 e sin(xt)dt: π 0 Clearly, K(x; y) and L(x; y) belongs to the family of Gaussian type inte- grals.