Convergence Tests for Improper Integrals
We have a few tests that will come in handy for determining if an improper integral converges. In all of these we’ll have an integrator on the ray
, and a function
which is integrable with respect to
on the interval
for all
.
First, say is nondecreasing and
is nonnegative. Then the integral
converges if and only if there is a constant
so that
for every . This follows because the function
is then nondecreasing, and a nondecreasing function bounded above must have a finite limit at infinity. Indeed, the set of values of
must be bounded above, and so there is a least upper bound
. It’s straightforward to show that the limit
is this least upper bound.
Now if is nondecreasing and
are two nonnegative functions, then if the improper integral of
converges then so does that of
, and we have the inequality
since for every we have
On the other hand, if the improper integral of diverges, then that of
must diverge.
If is nondecreasing and we have two nonnegative functions
and
so that
then their improper integrals either both converge or both diverge. This limit implies there must be some beyond which we have
. Equivalently, for
we have
, and the result follows by two applications of the previous theorem.
Notice that this last theorem also follows if the limit of the ratio converges to any nonzero number. Also notice how the convergence of the integral only depends on the behavior of our functions in some neighborhood of . We use their behavior in the ray
when we started by looking for convergence over the ray
.
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