Idoubt said:
Homework Statement
I want to evaluate the following definite integral of the form,
I = \int\limits_{x = -\infty}^{\infty}\int\limits_{y = -\infty}^{\infty} e^{-ax^2} e^{-by^2} | \cos(c x + d y)| dx dy
where a, b, c, and d are constants, as part of a larger problem I am doing,
Homework Equations
\cos x = \frac{1}{2} ( e^{ix} + e^{-ix})
\int\limits_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-a(x - b)^2} dx= \sqrt{\frac{\pi}{a}}
The Attempt at a Solution
If it wasn't for the abs value on the cos function it would be easy to write it in terms of exponentials and complete squares and perform the integral. As it is I don't know how to approach this, any help would be great. I have given a general form of the integral but for my purpose it's ok to assume a =b.
If you change variables to ##cx+dy = z\; \Rightarrow \; y = pz - qx## your integral becomes
$$I = \int_{x=-\infty}^{\infty} \int_{z = -\infty}^{\infty} p\, e^{-ax^2 - b(pz-qx)^2} |\cos(z)| \, dx \, dz$$
For fixed ##z## you can do the ##x##-integral first, and so end up with
$$I = A \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-r z^2} |\cos(z)| \, dz,$$
where
$$A =p \frac{\sqrt{\pi}}{\sqrt{a+bq^2}} \: \text{and} \; r = \frac{a b p^2}{a+bq^2}$$
You can go a bit farther, by writing
$$\begin{array}{l} I = A \int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-r z^2} \cos(z) \, dz\\
- 2A\left[ \int_{-3\pi/2}^{-\pi/2} + \int_{\pi/2}^{3\pi/2} + \int_{-7\pi/2}^{-5\pi/2} + \int_{5\pi/2}^{7\pi/2} + \int_{-11\pi/2}^{-9\pi/2} +\int_{9\pi/2}^{11\pi/2} + \cdots \right] \,e^{-rz^2} \cos(z) \, dz,
\end{array}$$
That comes from adding to the simple "cos" integral, twice the sum of those "cos" integrals where ##\cos(z) < 0## and noting that these latter cover the intervals ##(-3\pi/2,-\pi/2), (\pi/2 , 3\pi/2)## and the intervals ##(\pi/2 + 2 \pi n, 3\pi/2 +2 \pi n), (-3\pi/2 - 2 \pi n, -\pi/2 - 2 \pi n)## for ##n =1,2,\ldots ##.
At that point I cannot see how to give a more useful answer, although the integrals can be done in terms or error functions of complex arguments that depend on r and n, but I don't see that as very helpful. The expression might well be amenable to numerical evaluation, since the presence of factors ##e^{-4 \pi^2 r n^2}## means that good accuracy ought to be attainable from a few small values of ##n = 0, \pm1, \pm2, \ldots## and then the individual integrals can be tackled numerically.