In
calculus
Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations.
Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...
, the Leibniz integral rule for differentiation under the integral sign, named after
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...
, states that for an
integral
In mathematics, an integral is the continuous analog of a Summation, sum, which is used to calculate area, areas, volume, volumes, and their generalizations. Integration, the process of computing an integral, is one of the two fundamental oper ...
of the form
where
and the integrands are
functions dependent on
the derivative of this integral is expressible as
where the
partial derivative indicates that inside the integral, only the variation of
with
is considered in taking the derivative.
In the special case where the functions
and
are constants
and
with values that do not depend on
this simplifies to:
If
is constant and
, which is another common situation (for example, in the proof of
Cauchy's repeated integration formula), the Leibniz integral rule becomes:
This important result may, under certain conditions, be used to interchange the integral and partial differential
operators, and is particularly useful in the differentiation of
integral transforms. An example of such is the
moment generating function in
probability theory
Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expre ...
, a variation of the
Laplace transform, which can be differentiated to generate the
moments of a
random variable. Whether Leibniz's integral rule applies is essentially a question about the interchange of
limits.
General form: differentiation under the integral sign
The right hand side may also be written using
Lagrange's notation as:
Stronger versions of the theorem only require that the partial derivative exist
almost everywhere, and not that it be continuous.
This formula is the general form of the Leibniz integral rule and can be derived using the
fundamental theorem of calculus. The (first) fundamental theorem of calculus is just the particular case of the above formula where
is constant,
and
does not depend on
If both upper and lower limits are taken as constants, then the formula takes the shape of an
operator equation:
where
is the
partial derivative with respect to
and
is the integral operator with respect to
over a fixed
interval. That is, it is related to the
symmetry of second derivatives, but involving integrals as well as derivatives. This case is also known as the Leibniz integral rule.
The following three basic theorems on the
interchange of limits are essentially equivalent:
* the interchange of a derivative and an integral (differentiation under the integral sign; i.e., Leibniz integral rule);
* the change of order of partial derivatives;
* the change of order of integration (integration under the integral sign; i.e.,
Fubini's theorem).
Three-dimensional, time-dependent case

A Leibniz integral rule for a
two dimensional surface moving in three dimensional space is
where:
* is a vector field at the spatial position at time ,
* is the partial time derivative of the vector field,
* is a surface bounded by the closed curve ,
* is a vector element of the surface ,
* is a vector element of the curve ,
* is the velocity of movement of the region ,
* is the vector
divergence,
* is the
vector cross product,
*The double integrals are
surface integrals over the surface , and the
line integral is over the bounding curve .
Higher dimensions
The Leibniz integral rule can be extended to multidimensional integrals. In two and three dimensions, this rule is better known from the field of
fluid dynamics as the
Reynolds transport theorem:
where
is a scalar function, and denote a time-varying connected region of R
3 and its boundary, respectively,
is the Eulerian velocity of the boundary (see
Lagrangian and Eulerian coordinates) and is the unit normal component of the
surface element.
The general statement of the Leibniz integral rule requires concepts from
differential geometry
Differential geometry is a Mathematics, mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of Calculus, single variable calculus, vector calculus, lin ...
, specifically
differential forms,
exterior derivatives,
wedge products and
interior products. With those tools, the Leibniz integral rule in ''n'' dimensions is
where is a time-varying domain of integration, ''ω'' is a ''p''-form,
is the vector field of the velocity,
denotes the
interior product with
, ''d''
''x''''ω'' is the
exterior derivative of ''ω'' with respect to the space variables only and
is the time derivative of ''ω''.
The above formula can be deduced directly from the fact that the
Lie derivative interacts nicely with integration of differential forms
for the spacetime manifold
, where the spacetime exterior derivative of
is
and the surface
has spacetime velocity field
.
Since
has only spatial components, the Lie derivative can be simplified using
Cartan's magic formula, to
which, after integrating over
and using
generalized Stokes' theorem on the second term, reduces to the three desired terms.
Measure theory statement
Let
be an open subset of
, and
be a
measure space. Suppose
satisfies the following conditions:
#
is a Lebesgue-integrable function of
for each
.
#For
almost all , the partial derivative
exists for all
.
#There is an integrable function
such that
for all
and almost every
.
Then, for all
,
The proof relies on the
dominated convergence theorem and the
mean value theorem (details below).
Proofs
Proof of basic form
We first prove the case of constant limits of integration ''a'' and ''b''.
We use
Fubini's theorem to change the order of integration. For every and , such that and both and are within , we have:
Note that the integrals at hand are well defined since
is continuous at the closed rectangle
and thus also uniformly continuous there; thus its integrals by either ''dt'' or ''dx'' are continuous in the other variable and also integrable by it (essentially this is because for uniformly continuous functions, one may pass the limit through the integration sign, as elaborated below).
Therefore:
Where we have defined:
(we may replace ''x''
0 here by any other point between ''x''
0 and ''x'')
''F'' is differentiable with derivative
, so we can take the limit where approaches zero. For the left hand side this limit is:
For the right hand side, we get:
And we thus prove the desired result:
Another proof using the bounded convergence theorem
If the integrals at hand are
Lebesgue integrals, we may use the
bounded convergence theorem (valid for these integrals, but not for
Riemann integrals) in order to show that the limit can be passed through the integral sign.
Note that this proof is weaker in the sense that it only shows that ''f
x''(''x'',''t'') is Lebesgue integrable, but not that it is Riemann integrable. In the former (stronger) proof, if ''f''(''x'',''t'') is Riemann integrable, then so is ''f
x''(''x'',''t'') (and thus is obviously also Lebesgue integrable).
Let
By the definition of the derivative,
Substitute equation () into equation (). The difference of two integrals equals the integral of the difference, and 1/''h'' is a constant, so
We now show that the limit can be passed through the integral sign.
We claim that the passage of the limit under the integral sign is valid by the bounded convergence theorem (a corollary of the
dominated convergence theorem). For each ''δ'' > 0, consider the
difference quotient
In single-variable calculus, the difference quotient is usually the name for the expression
: \frac
which when taken to the Limit of a function, limit as ''h'' approaches 0 gives the derivative of the Function (mathematics), function ''f''. The ...
For ''t'' fixed, the
mean value theorem implies there exists ''z'' in the interval
'x'', ''x'' + ''δ''such that
Continuity of ''f''
''x''(''x'', ''t'') and compactness of the domain together imply that ''f''
''x''(''x'', ''t'') is bounded. The above application of the mean value theorem therefore gives a uniform (independent of
) bound on
. The difference quotients converge pointwise to the partial derivative ''f''
''x'' by the assumption that the partial derivative exists.
The above argument shows that for every sequence → 0, the sequence
is uniformly bounded and converges pointwise to ''f''
''x''. The bounded convergence theorem states that if a sequence of functions on a set of finite measure is uniformly bounded and converges pointwise, then passage of the limit under the integral is valid. In particular, the limit and integral may be exchanged for every sequence → 0. Therefore, the limit as ''δ'' → 0 may be passed through the integral sign.
If instead we only know that there is an integrable function
such that
, then
and the dominated convergence theorem allows us to move the limit inside of the integral.
Variable limits form
For a
continuous real valued function ''g'' of one
real variable, and real valued
differentiable functions
and
of one real variable,
This follows from the
chain rule and the
First Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. Define
and
(The lower limit just has to be some number in the domain of
)
Then,
can be written as a
composition:
. The
Chain Rule then implies that
By the
First Fundamental Theorem of Calculus,
. Therefore, substituting this result above, we get the desired equation:
Note: This form can be particularly useful if the expression to be differentiated is of the form:
Because
does not depend on the limits of integration, it may be moved out from under the integral sign, and the above form may be used with the
Product rule, i.e.,
General form with variable limits
Set
where ''a'' and ''b'' are functions of ''α'' that exhibit increments Δ''a'' and Δ''b'', respectively, when ''α'' is increased by Δ''α''. Then,
A form of the
mean value theorem,
, where ''a'' < ''ξ'' < ''b'', may be applied to the first and last integrals of the formula for Δ''φ'' above, resulting in
Divide by Δ''α'' and let Δ''α'' → 0. Notice ''ξ''
1 → ''a'' and ''ξ''
2 → ''b''. We may pass the limit through the integral sign:
again by the bounded convergence theorem. This yields the general form of the Leibniz integral rule,
Alternative proof of the general form with variable limits, using the chain rule
The general form of Leibniz's Integral Rule with variable limits can be derived as a consequence of the
basic form of Leibniz's Integral Rule, the
multivariable chain rule, and the
first fundamental theorem of calculus. Suppose
is defined in a rectangle in the
plane, for
and
. Also, assume
and the partial derivative
are both continuous functions on this rectangle. Suppose
are
differentiable real valued functions defined on