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sine integral at infinity
The value of the improper integral (one of the Dirichlet integrals) $$\int_0^\infty \frac{\sin{x}}{x}\,dx = \lim_{x\to\infty}\Si{x},$$ where Si means the sine integral function, is most simply determined by using Laplace transform which may be aimed to the integrand (see integration of Laplace transform with respect to parameter). Therefore the integrand must be equipped with an additional parametre $t$ :
$$\mathcal{L}\{\int_0^\infty \frac{1}{x}\sin{tx}\,dx\} = \int_0^\infty\frac{1}{x}\!\cdot\!\frac{x}{s^2+x^2}\,dx = \int_0^\infty\!\frac{dx}{s^2+x^2} = \frac{1}{s}\!\sijoitus{x = 0}{\quad\infty}\!\arctan{\frac{x}{s}} = \frac{\pi}{2}\!\cdot\!\frac{1}{s}$$ The obtained transform $\frac{\pi}{2}\!\cdot\!\frac{1}{s}$ corresponds (see the inverse Laplace transformation) to the constant function $t\mapsto\frac{\pi}{2}$ because $\mathcal{L}\{1\} = \frac{1}{s}$ . Thus we have the result
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(1) |
Note 1. Since $x\mapsto \frac{\sin{x}}{x}$ or $x\mapsto\operatorname{sinc}{x}$ is an even function, the result (1) may be written also $$ \int_{-\infty}^\infty \operatorname{sinc}{x}\,dx=\pi;$$ see the $\operatorname{sinc}$ -function.
Note 2. The result (1) may be easily generalised to
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(2) |
and to
sgn![]() |
(3) |



sgn