Roberto’s Notes on Integral Calculus

Chapter 2: Integration methods Section 6

Reduction formulae through integration by parts

What you need to know already: What you can learn here:
 How integration by parts works.  How integration by parts can generate
formulae to decrease the power of the
integrand to a lower value.

a single integral, until the last integral is easy to obtain through some basic formula
The usual examples and exercises of integration usually involve low powers of
or method.
basic functions. That is done to decrease the level of difficulty of the computations
and focus instead on how the relevant methods work.

 x e dx
However, in some real applications the power of the integrand may be fairly n x
high and integration by parts may have to be used many times before arriving at the
Example:
final expression for the general antiderivative. When this is the case, it may be
useful to find a shortcut to simplify the repetitions of the steps. This integral involves the n-th power of x, where n can be an integer number
as high as we want. The structure of the integrand as a product of two
functions of different types suggests that integration by parts may be useful,
so we try it:
Definition f '  ex , g  xn , f  e x , g '  nxn1
This leads to:
A reduction formula is a formula that expresses the
 x e dx  fg   g ' fdx  x n e x  n  x n 1e x dx
n x
integral of a function involving a generic power in
terms of another integral with a similar structure, but We can therefore conclude that for any value of n:
involving a lower power.
 x e dx  x e  n  x e dx
n x n x n 1 x

This is a reduction formula, since it does not give us an explicit formula for
the original integral, but reduces it to a formula that involves the same
Constructing a reduction formula allows us to compute integrals involving
integral, but with a lower power of x.
large powers of the variable by applying that formula repeatedly, without computing

Integral Calculus Chapter 2: Integration methods Section 6: Reduction formulae through integration by parts Page 1
 x cos x dx 
n
 x e dx .
3 x
For instance, we can apply this formula repeatedly to compute

The first use gives:  x n sin x  nx n1 cos x  n  n  1  x n2 cos x dx

 x e dx  x e  3 x 2 e x dx
3 x 3 x

x
4
We can use this formula to compute cos x dx . The first time we get:
Now we apply it again to the remaining integral:
  x cos x dx  x 4 sin x  4 x 3 cos x  12  x 2 cos x dx
4
x 3e x  3 x 2 e x dx  x 3e x  3 x 2e x  2  xe x dx
 x 3e x  3 x 2 e x  6  xe x dx We apply it again to get:

x cos x dx 
4

 
And one last time:
 
x3e x  3 x 2 e x  6 xe x   e x dx  x 3e x  3x 2e x  6 xe x  6e x  c  x 4 sin x  4 x3 cos x  12 x 2 sin x  2 x cos x  2  cos x dx
 x4 sin x  4x3 cos x 12x2 sin x  24x cos x  24sin x  c

x
n
Example: cos x dx
We have again a situation suitable for an iterative reduction formula, so we
try it with the obvious choice of parts:
f  x   xn , g '  x   cos x  f '  x   nx n1, g  x   sin x

x cos x dx  x n sin x  n  x n 1 sin x dx

n

This time we get a new integral that has a similar structure, but not quite the
same, since it involves the sine instead of the cosine. But we know that the
integral of the sine involves the cosine, so we try it again.
f  x   xn1 , g '  x   sin x
 f '  x    n 1 xn2 , g  x    cos x
x n sin x  n  x n 1 sin x dx 


 x n sin x  n  x n 1 cos x   n  1  x n  2 cos x dx 
This produces the reduction formula:

Integral Calculus Chapter 2: Integration methods Section 6: Reduction formulae through integration by parts Page 2
 Summary
 A power reduction formula allows us to change an integral involving a high power to one involving a lower power.
 Power reduction formulae are often obtained by using integration by parts.

Common errors to avoid

 Watch the algebra steps, as they can become rather long and complex!

Learning questions for Section I 2-6

Review questions:

1. Describe what a reduction formula is and how it is used.

Computation questions:

 x
n
3. Use the iterative reduction formula for cos x dx to compute
1. Construct a reduction formula for integrals of the form x n e 2 x dx and use it
x
5
cos x dx .
2 2x
to determine the antiderivative of xe .

x
n
2. Construct the iterative reduction formula for sin x dx .

Integral Calculus Chapter 2: Integration methods Section 6: Reduction formulae through integration by parts Page 3
 Theory questions:

1. The formula  u n cos udu  u n sin u  n  u n 1 sin udu is an example of what type of integration formulae?

What questions do you have for your instructor?

Integral Calculus Chapter 2: Integration methods Section 6: Reduction formulae through integration by parts Page 4