Integration in Finite Terms with Special Functions: the Error Function

A decision procedure for integrating a class of transcendental elementary functions in terms of elementary functions and error functions is described. The procedure consists of three mutually exclusive cases. In the first two cases a generalised procedure for completing squares is used to limit the error functions which can appear in the integral to a finite number. This reduces the problem to the solution of a differential equation and we use a result of Risch (1969) to solve it. The third case can be reduced to the determination of what we have termed E-decompositions. The result presented here is the key procedure to a more general algorithm which is described fully in Cherry (1983).

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