English

A shortcut for evaluating some log integrals from products and limits

History and Overview 2016-12-13 v3

Abstract

In this short paper, I introduce an elementary method for exactly evaluating the definite integrals 0πln(sinθ)dθ\, \int_0^{\pi}{\ln{(\sin{\theta})}\,d\theta}, 0π/2ln(sinθ)dθ\int_0^{\pi/2}{\ln{(\sin{\theta})}\,d\theta}, 0π/2ln(cosθ)dθ\int_0^{\pi/2}{\ln{(\cos{\theta})}\,d\theta}, and 0π/2ln(tanθ)dθ\int_0^{\pi/2}{\ln{(\tan{\theta})}\,d\theta} \, in finite terms. The method consists in to manipulate the sums obtained from the logarithm of certain products of trigonometric functions at rational multiples of π\pi, putting them in the form of Riemann sums. As this method does not involve any search for primitives, it represents a good alternative to more involved integration techniques. As a bonus, I show how to apply the method for easily evaluating 01lnΓ(x)dx\,\int_0^1{\ln{\Gamma(x)} \, d x}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0909.0710,
  title  = {A shortcut for evaluating some log integrals from products and limits},
  author = {F. M. S. Lima},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.0710},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

6 pages, no figures. Revised form. Some small corrections. Submitted to: IJMEST (06/26/2012)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:42:23.620Z