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In numerical analysis, a quadrature rule is an approximation of the definite integral of a function, usually stated as a weighted sum of function values at specified points within the domain of integration. (See numerical integration for more on quadrature rules.) An n-point Gaussian quadrature rule, named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, is a quadrature rule constructed to yield an exact result for polynomials of degree 2n − 1, by a suitable choice of the n points x_i and n weights w_i. The domain of integration for such a rule is conventionally taken as [−1, 1], so the rule is stated as

It can be shown (see Press, et al., or Stoer and Bulirsch) that the evaluation points are just the roots of a polynomial belonging to a class of orthogonal polynomials.

Contents 1 Rules for the basic problem 2 Change of interval for Gaussian quadrature 3 Other forms of Gaussian quadrature 3.1 Fundamental theorem 3.2 Error estimates 3.3 Gauss–Kronrod rules 4 References 5 External links

For the integration problem stated above, the associated polynomials are Legendre polynomials, P_n(x). With the n^th polynomial normalized to give P_n(1) = 1, the i^th Gauss node, x_i, is the i^th root of P_n; its weight is given by (Abramowitz & Stegun 1972, p. 887)

Some low-order rules for solving the integration problem are listed below.

Number of points, n	Points, xi	Weights, wi
1	0	2
2		1
3	0	8⁄9
		5⁄9
4
5	0	128⁄225

An integral over [a, b] must be changed into an integral over [−1, 1] before applying the Gaussian quadrature rule. This change of interval can be done in the following way:

After applying the Gaussian quadrature rule, the following approximation is obtained:

The integration problem can be expressed in a slightly more general way by introducing a positive weight function ω into the integrand, and allowing an interval other than [−1, 1]. That is, the problem is to calculate

for some choices of a, b, and ω. For a = −1, b = 1, and ω(x) = 1, the problem is the same as that considered above. Other choices lead to other integration rules. Some of these are tabulated below. Equation numbers are given for Abramowitz and Stegun (A & S).

Interval	ω(x)	Orthogonal polynomials	A & S
[−1, 1]		Legendre polynomials	25.4.29
(−1, 1)		Jacobi polynomials	25.4.33 (β = 0)
(−1, 1)		Chebyshev polynomials (first kind)	25.4.38
[−1, 1]		Chebyshev polynomials (second kind)	25.4.40
[0, ∞)		Laguerre polynomials	25.4.45
(−∞, ∞)		Hermite polynomials	25.4.46

Let q be a nontrivial polynomial of degree n such that

If we pick the nodes to be the zeros of q, then there exist weights w_i which make the computed integral exact for all polynomials of degree 2n − 1 or less. Furthermore, all these nodes will lie in the open interval (a, b) (Stoer & Bulirsch 2002, pp. 172–175).

The error of a Gaussian quadrature rule can be stated as follows (Stoer & Bulirsch 2002, Thm 3.6.24). For an integrand which has 2n continuous derivatives,

for some ξ in (a, b), where p_n is the orthogonal polynomial of order n and where

In the important special case of ω(x) = 1, we have the error estimate (Kahaner, Moler & Nash 1989, §5.2)

Stoer and Bulirsch remark that this error estimate is inconvenient in practice, since it may be difficult to estimate the order 2n derivative, and furthermore the actual error may be much less than a bound established by the derivative. Another approach is to use two Gaussian quadrature rules of different orders, and to estimate the error as the difference between the two results. For this purpose, Gauss-Kronrod quadrature rules can be useful.

If the interval [a, b] is subdivided, the Gauss evaluation points of the new subintervals never coincide with the previous evaluation points (except at zero for odd numbers), and thus the integrand must be evaluated at every point. Gauss-Kronrod rules are extensions of Gauss quadrature rules generated by adding n + 1 points to an n-point rule in such a way that the resulting rule is of order 3n + 1. This allows for computing higher-order estimates while re-using the function values of a lower-order estimate. The difference between a Gauss quadrature rule and its Kronrod extension are often used as an estimate of the approximation error. The rules are named after Alexander Kronrod who invented them in the 1960s. The algorithms in QUADPACK (see below) are based on Gauss–Kronrod rules.

A popular example combines a 7-point Gauss rule with a 15-point Kronrod rule (Kahaner, Moler & Nash 1989, §5.5). Because the Gauss points are incorporated into the Kronrod points, a total of only 15 function evaluations yields both a quadrature estimate and an error estimate.

(G7,K15) on [−1,1]

Gauss nodes		Weights
±0.94910 79123 42759	∗	0.12948 49661 68870
±0.74153 11855 99394	∗	0.27970 53914 89277
±0.40584 51513 77397	∗	0.38183 00505 05119
0.00000 00000 00000	∗	0.41795 91836 73469
Kronrod nodes		Weights
±0.99145 53711 20813		0.02293 53220 10529
±0.94910 79123 42759	∗	0.06309 20926 29979
±0.86486 44233 59769		0.10479 00103 22250
±0.74153 11855 99394	∗	0.14065 32597 15525
±0.58608 72354 67691		0.16900 47266 39267
±0.40584 51513 77397	∗	0.19035 05780 64785
±0.20778 49550 07898		0.20443 29400 75298
0.00000 00000 00000	∗	0.20948 21410 84728

Patterson showed how to find further extensions of this type.

• Abramowitz, Milton & Stegun, Irene A., eds. (1972), "§25.4, Integration", Handbook of Mathematical Functions (with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables), Dover, ISBN 978-0-486-61272-0
• Kahaner, David; Moler, Cleve & Nash, Stephen (1989), Numerical Methods and Software, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-627258-8
• Kronrod, Aleksandr Semenovish (1965), Nodes and weights of quadrature formulas. Sixteen-place tables, New York: Consultants Bureau (Authorized translation from the Russian)
• Piessens, Robert; de Doncker-Kapenga, Elise & Überhuber, C. W. et al. (1983), QUADPACK, A subroutine package for automatic integration, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-540-12553-2 (Reference guide for QUADPACK)
• Press, William H.; Flannery, Brian P. & Teukolsky, Saul A. et al. (1988), "§4.5: Gaussian Quadratures and Orthogonal Polynomials", Numerical Recipes in C (2nd ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-43108-8
• Stoer, Josef & Bulirsch, Roland (2002), Introduction to Numerical Analysis (3rd ed.), Springer, ISBN 978-0-387-95452-3.
• Patterson, T. N. L. (1968), "The Optimum Addition of Points to Quadrature Formulae", Math. Comput. 22 (104): 847-856 and C1-C11.
• Patterson, T. N. L. (1969), Math. Comput. 23: 892 (Errata).

• QUADPACK (part of SLATEC): description [1], source code [2]. QUADPACK is a collection of algorithms, in Fortran, for numerical integration based on Gauss-Kronrod rules. SLATEC (at Netlib) is a large public domain library for numerical computing.
• ALGLIB contains a collection of algorithms for numerical integration (in C# / C++ / Delphi / Visual Basic / etc.)
• GNU Scientific Library - includes C version of QUADPACK algorithms (see also GNU Scientific Library)
• Gaussian Quadrature Rule of Integration - Notes, PPT, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Mathcad at Holistic Numerical Methods Institute
• Gaussian Quadrature table at sitmo.com
• Legendre-Gauss Quadrature at MathWorld