How to integrate a sinc function?

  • Context: Undergrad 
  • Thread starter Thread starter yungman
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Function Integrate
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
1 reply · 6K views
yungman
Messages
5,741
Reaction score
291
Can anyone show me how to do this:

[tex]\int_a^b \left[\frac {\sin x}{x}\right]^2 dx[/tex]
 
Physics news on Phys.org
It depends on you purpose, but in general the best bet may be power series methods.

The Taylor series for sin2 is

[itex]\sin^2 x = -\sum^\infty_{k=1} \frac{(-1)^{k} 2^{2k-1}x^{2k}}{(2k)!}[/itex]

So we have

[itex]\frac{\sin^2 x}{x^2} = -\sum^\infty_{k=1} \frac{(-1)^{k} 2^{2k-1}x^{2k-2}}{(2k)!}[/itex]

Then you can try term-wise integration and the fundamental theorem of calculus to get a general form for the answer as a power series.