Double Integrals over General Domains
We have just looked at Double Integrals over Rectangles. Recall that if $z = f(x, y)$ is a two variable real-valued function and let $R = [a, b] \times [c, d] \subseteq D(f)$ be a rectangular subset of the domain. Then the double integral of $f$ over $R$ (provided this limit exists) is:
(1)Sometimes we may be more interested in computing double integrals over subsets of the domain that aren't necessarily rectangles and instead some other shape. Let $D \subseteq D(f)$ be a subset of the domain that is not necessarily a rectangle, and inscribe $D$ within a rectangle $R$ whose side lengths are parallel to the $x$ and $y$ axes.
We will define the two variable real-valued function $\hat{f} (x, y)$ as follows:
(2)We are now ready to define the double integral of $f$ over $D$.
Definition: Let $z = f(x, y)$ be a two variable real-valued function that is bounded on $D \subseteq D(f)$ and let $R$ be a rectangle whose sides are parallel to the $x$ and $y$ axes such that $D \subseteq R$. Let $f$ be integrable over $R$, and let $\hat{f} = \left\{\begin{matrix} f(x,y) & \mathrm{if} \: (x,y) \in D \\ 0 & \mathrm{if} \: (x,y) \not \in D \end{matrix}\right.$. Then the Double Integral of $f$ over $D$ is defined to be $\iint_D f(x,y) \: dA = \iint_{R} \hat{f} (x,y) \: dA$. |
Note that $\iint_D f(x,y) \: dA = \iint_{R} \hat{f} (x,y) \: dA$ since for all $(x, y) \not \in D$, $\hat{f} (x, y) = 0$ which does not contribute any value to the double integral.