numerical integration for Gaussian function - indefinite integral - matlab

Question

My approach
fun = #(y) (1/sqrt(pi))*exp(-(y-1).^2).*log(1 + exp(-4*y))
integral(fun,-Inf,Inf)
This gives NaN.
So I tried plotting it.
y= -10:0.1:10;
plot(y,exp(-(y-1).^2).*log(1 + exp(-4*y)))
Then understood that domain (siginificant part) is from -4 to +4.
So changed the limits to
integral(fun,-10,10)
However I do not want to always plot the graph and then know its limits. So is there any way to know the integral directly from -Inf to Inf.

Answer 1

Discussion
If your integrals are always of the form
I would use a high-order Gauss–Hermite quadrature rule.
It's similar to the Gauss-Legendre-Kronrod rule that forms the basis for quadgk but is specifically tailored for integrals over the real line with a standard Gaussian multiplier.
Rewriting your equation with the substitution x = y-1, we get
.
The integral can then be computed using the Gauss-Hermite rule of arbitrary order (within reason):
>> order = 10;
>> [nodes,weights] = GaussHermiteRule(order);
>> f = #(x) log(1 + exp(-4*(x+1)))/sqrt(pi);
>> sum(f(nodes).*weights)
ans =
0.1933
I'd note that the function below builds a full order x order matrix to compute nodes, so it shouldn't be made too large.
There is a way to avoid this by explicitly computing the weights, but I decided to be lazy.
Besides, event at order 100, the Gaussian multiplier is about 2E-98, so the integrand's contribution is extremely minimal.
And while this isn't inherently adaptive, a high-order rule should be sufficient in most cases ... I hope.
Code
function [nodes,weights] = GaussHermiteRule(n)
% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Find the nodes and weights for a Gauss-Hermite Quadrature integration.
%
if (n < 1)
error('There is no Gauss-Hermite rule of order 0.');
elseif (n < 0) || (abs(n - round(n)) > eps())
error('Given order ''n'' must be a strictly positive integer.');
else
n = round(n);
end
% Get the nodes and weights from the Golub-Welsch function
n = (0:n)' ;
b = n*0 ;
a = b + 0.5 ;
c = n ;
[nodes,weights] = GolubWelsch(a,b,c,sqrt(pi));
end
function [xk,wk] = GolubWelsch(ak,bk,ck,mu0)
%GolubWelsch
% Calculate the approximate* nodes and weights (normalized to 1) of an orthogonal
% polynomial family defined by a three-term reccurence relation of the form
% x pk(x) = ak pkp1(x) + bk pk(x) + ck pkm1(x)
%
% The weight scale factor mu0 is the integral of the weight function over the
% orthogonal domain.
%
% Calculate the terms for the orthonormal version of the polynomials
alpha = sqrt(ak(1:end-1) .* ck(2:end));
% Build the symmetric tridiagonal matrix
T = full(spdiags([[alpha;0],bk,[0;alpha]],[-1,0,+1],length(alpha),length(alpha)));
% Calculate the eigenvectors and values of the matrix
[V,xk] = eig(T,'vector');
% Calculate the weights from the eigenvectors - technically, Golub-Welsch requires
% a normalization, but since MATLAB returns unit eigenvectors, it is omitted.
wk = mu0*(V(1,:).^2)';
end

Answer 2

I've had success with transforming such infinite-bounded integrals using a numerical variable transformation, as explained in Numerical Recipes 3e, section 4.5.3. Basically, you substitute in y=c*tan(t)+b and then numerically integrate over t in (-pi/2,pi/2), which sweeps y from -infinity to infinity. You can tune the values of c and b to optimize the process. This approach largely dodges the question of trying to determine cutoffs in the domain, but for this to work reliably using quadrature you have to know that the integrand does not have features far from y=b.

Answer 3

A quick and dirty solution would be to look for a position, where your function is sufficiently small enough and then taking it as limits. This assumes that for x>0 the function fun decreases montonically and fun(x) is roughly the same size as fun(-x) for all x.
%// A small number
epsilon = eps;
%// Stepsize for searching bound
stepTest = 1;
%// Starting position for searching bound
position = 0;
%// Not yet small enough
smallEnough = false;
%// Search bound
while ~smallEnough
smallEnough = (fun(position) < eps);
position = position + stepTest;
end
%// Calculate integral
integral(fun, -position, position)
If your were happy with plotting the function, deciding by eye where you can cut, then this code will suffice, I guess.