Why is the output different for this integral in Mathematica?

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter JulieK
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Integral
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
4 replies · 4K views
JulieK
Messages
50
Reaction score
0
What is this integral
[itex]\int\left(\frac{\mathrm{arcsinh}(ax)}{ax}\right)^{b}dx[/itex]
where a and b are constants.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The substitution [itex]ax = \sinh t[/itex] yields [tex] \int \left(\frac{\mathrm{arcsinh}(ax)}{ax}\right)^b\,dx = \int \left(\frac{t}{\sinh t}\right)^b \frac{\cosh t}{a}\,dt \\ <br /> = \left[ \frac{1}{a(1-b)}\frac{t^b}{(\sinh t)^{b-1}}\right] <br /> + \frac{b}{a(b - 1)} \int \left(\frac{t}{\sinh t}\right)^{b-1}\,dt \\[/tex] on integration by parts. Unfortunately that seems to be as far as one can get.
 
The wonderful Wolfram online integrator can't do it, so there's not much hope...
 
I confirm, Mathematica replies: "no result found in terms of standard mathematical functions" which is true in most cases.
 
Just starting with Mathematica, I type in:
Code:
Integrate[((ArcSinh[a * x])/ a * x)^b, x]
and I get out:
Code:
\[Integral]((x ArcSinh[a x])/a)^b \[DifferentialD]x
Is there some reason I am getting a different output?