In
calculus, an antiderivative, inverse derivative, primitive function, primitive integral or indefinite integral[Note 1] of a
functionf is a
differentiable functionF whose
derivative is equal to the original function f. This can be stated symbolically as F' = f.[1][2] The process of solving for antiderivatives is called antidifferentiation (or indefinite integration), and its opposite operation is called differentiation, which is the process of finding a derivative. Antiderivatives are often denoted by capital
Roman letters such as F and G.
Antiderivatives are related to
definite integrals through the
second fundamental theorem of calculus: the definite integral of a function over a
closed interval where the function is Riemann integrable is equal to the difference between the values of an antiderivative evaluated at the endpoints of the interval.
The function is an antiderivative of , since the derivative of is . Since the derivative of a
constant is
zero, will have an
infinite number of antiderivatives, such as , etc. Thus, all the antiderivatives of can be obtained by changing the value of c in , where c is an arbitrary constant known as the
constant of integration. Essentially, the
graphs of antiderivatives of a given function are
vertical translations of each other, with each graph's vertical location depending upon the
valuec.
More generally, the
power function has antiderivative if n ≠ −1, and if n = −1.
In
physics, the integration of
acceleration yields
velocity plus a constant. The constant is the initial velocity term that would be lost upon taking the derivative of velocity, because the derivative of a constant term is zero. This same pattern applies to further integrations and derivatives of motion (position, velocity, acceleration, and so on).[3] Thus, integration produces the relations of acceleration, velocity and
displacement:
Because of this, each of the infinitely many antiderivatives of a given function f may be called the "indefinite integral" of f and written using the integral symbol with no bounds:
If F is an antiderivative of f, and the function f is defined on some interval, then every other antiderivative G of f differs from F by a constant: there exists a number c such that for all x. c is called the
constant of integration. If the domain of F is a
disjoint union of two or more (open) intervals, then a different constant of integration may be chosen for each of the intervals. For instance
is the most general antiderivative of on its natural domain
Every
continuous functionf has an antiderivative, and one antiderivative F is given by the definite integral of f with variable upper boundary:
for any a in the domain of f. Varying the lower boundary produces other antiderivatives, but not necessarily all possible antiderivatives. This is another formulation of the
fundamental theorem of calculus.
Finding antiderivatives of elementary functions is often considerably harder than finding their derivatives (indeed, there is no pre-defined method for computing indefinite integrals).[4] For some elementary functions, it is impossible to find an antiderivative in terms of other elementary functions. To learn more, see
elementary functions and
nonelementary integral.
There exist many properties and techniques for finding antiderivatives. These include, among others:
Inverse function integration (a formula that expresses the antiderivative of the inverse f−1 of an invertible and continuous function f, in terms of the antiderivative of f and of f−1).
Computer algebra systems can be used to automate some or all of the work involved in the symbolic techniques above, which is particularly useful when the algebraic manipulations involved are very complex or lengthy. Integrals which have already been derived can be looked up in a
table of integrals.
Of non-continuous functions
Non-continuous functions can have antiderivatives. While there are still open questions in this area, it is known that:
Some highly
pathological functions with large sets of discontinuities may nevertheless have antiderivatives.
In some cases, the antiderivatives of such pathological functions may be found by
Riemann integration, while in other cases these functions are not Riemann integrable.
Assuming that the domains of the functions are open intervals:
A necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a function f to have an antiderivative is that f have the
intermediate value property. That is, if a, b is a subinterval of the domain of f and y is any real number between f(a) and f(b), then there exists a c between a and b such that f(c) = y. This is a consequence of
Darboux's theorem.
The set of discontinuities of f must be a
meagre set. This set must also be an
F-sigma set (since the set of discontinuities of any function must be of this type). Moreover, for any meagre F-sigma set, one can construct some function f having an antiderivative, which has the given set as its set of discontinuities.
If f has an antiderivative, is
bounded on closed finite subintervals of the domain and has a set of discontinuities of
Lebesgue measure 0, then an antiderivative may be found by integration in the sense of Lebesgue. In fact, using more powerful integrals like the
Henstock–Kurzweil integral, every function for which an antiderivative exists is integrable, and its general integral coincides with its antiderivative.
If f has an antiderivative F on a closed interval , then for any choice of partition if one chooses sample points as specified by the
mean value theorem, then the corresponding Riemann sum
telescopes to the value . However if f is unbounded, or if f is bounded but the set of discontinuities of f has positive Lebesgue measure, a different choice of sample points may give a significantly different value for the Riemann sum, no matter how fine the partition. See Example 4 below.
Some examples
The function
with is not continuous at but has the antiderivative
with . Since f is bounded on closed finite intervals and is only discontinuous at 0, the antiderivative F may be obtained by integration: .
The function
with is not continuous at but has the antiderivative
with . Unlike Example 1, f(x) is unbounded in any interval containing 0, so the Riemann integral is undefined.
If f(x) is the function in Example 1 and F is its antiderivative, and is a
densecountablesubset of the open interval then the function
has an antiderivative
The set of discontinuities of g is precisely the set . Since g is bounded on closed finite intervals and the set of discontinuities has measure 0, the antiderivative G may be found by integration.
Let be a
densecountable subset of the open interval Consider the everywhere continuous strictly increasing function
It can be shown that
for all values x where the series converges, and that the graph of F(x) has vertical tangent lines at all other values of x. In particular the graph has vertical tangent lines at all points in the set .
Moreover for all x where the derivative is defined. It follows that the inverse function is differentiable everywhere and that
for all x in the set which is dense in the interval Thus g has an antiderivative G. On the other hand, it can not be true that
since for any partition of , one can choose sample points for the Riemann sum from the set , giving a value of 0 for the sum. It follows that g has a set of discontinuities of positive Lebesgue measure. Figure 1 on the right shows an approximation to the graph of g(x) where and the series is truncated to 8 terms. Figure 2 shows the graph of an approximation to the antiderivative G(x), also truncated to 8 terms. On the other hand if the Riemann integral is replaced by the
Lebesgue integral, then
Fatou's lemma or the
dominated convergence theorem shows that g does satisfy the fundamental theorem of calculus in that context.
In Examples 3 and 4, the sets of discontinuities of the functions g are dense only in a finite open interval However, these examples can be easily modified so as to have sets of discontinuities which are dense on the entire real line . Let
Then has a dense set of discontinuities on and has antiderivative
Using a similar method as in Example 5, one can modify g in Example 4 so as to vanish at all
rational numbers. If one uses a naive version of the
Riemann integral defined as the limit of left-hand or right-hand Riemann sums over regular partitions, one will obtain that the integral of such a function g over an interval is 0 whenever a and b are both rational, instead of . Thus the fundamental theorem of calculus will fail spectacularly.
A function which has an antiderivative may still fail to be Riemann integrable. The derivative of
Volterra's function is an example.
^Antiderivatives are also called general integrals, and sometimes integrals. The latter term is generic, and refers not only to indefinite integrals (antiderivatives), but also to
definite integrals. When the word integral is used without additional specification, the reader is supposed to deduce from the context whether it refers to a definite or indefinite integral. Some authors define the indefinite integral of a function as the set of its infinitely many possible antiderivatives. Others define it as an arbitrarily selected element of that set. This article adopts the latter approach. In English A-Level Mathematics textbooks one can find the term complete primitive - L. Bostock and S. Chandler (1978) Pure Mathematics 1; The solution of a differential equation including the arbitrary constant is called the general solution (or sometimes the complete primitive).