determination of Fourier coefficients
Suppose that the real function may be presented as sum of the Fourier series:
(1) |
Therefore, is periodic with period . For expressing the Fourier coefficients and with the function itself, we first multiply the series (1) by () and integrate from to . Supposing that we can integrate termwise, we may write
(2) |
When , the equation (2) reads
(3) |
since in the sum of the right hand side, only the first addend is distinct from zero.
When is a positive integer, we use the product formulas of the trigonometric identities, getting
The latter expression vanishes always, since the sine is an odd function. If , the former equals zero because the antiderivative consists of sine terms which vanish at multiples of ; only in the case we obtain from it a non-zero result . Then (2) reads
(4) |
to which we can include as a special case the equation (3).
By multiplying (1) by and integrating termwise, one obtains similarly
(5) |
The equations (4) and (5) imply the formulas
and
for finding the values of the Fourier coefficients of .