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Inmathematics, theintegral of a non-negativefunction of a single variable can be regarded, in the simplest case, as thearea between thegraph of that function and theX axis. TheLebesgue integral, named afterFrench mathematicianHenri Lebesgue, is one way to make this concept rigorous and to extend it to more general functions.
The Lebesgue integral is more general than theRiemann integral, which it largely replaced inmathematical analysis since the first half of the 20th century. It can accommodate functions with discontinuities arising in many applications that are pathological from the perspective of the Riemann integral. The Lebesgue integral also has generally better analytical properties. For instance, under mild conditions, it is possible to exchange limits with Lebesgue integration, while the conditions for doing this with a Riemann integral are comparatively restrictive. Furthermore, the Lebesgue integral can be generalized in a straightforward way to more general spaces,measure spaces, such as those that arise inprobability theory.
The termLebesgue integration can mean either the general theory of integration of a function with respect to a generalmeasure, as introduced by Lebesgue, or the specific case of integration of a function defined on a sub-domain of thereal line with respect to theLebesgue measure.
The integral of a positive real functionf between boundariesa andb can be interpreted as the area under the graph off, betweena andb. This notion of area fits some functions, mainlypiecewise continuous functions, includingelementary functions, for examplepolynomials. However, the graphs of other functions, for example theDirichlet function, do not fit well with the notion of area. Graphs like that of the latter, raise the question: for which class of functions does "area under the curve" make sense? The answer to this question has great theoretical importance.
As part of a general movement towardrigor in mathematics in the nineteenth century, mathematicians attempted to put integral calculus on a firm foundation. TheRiemann integral—proposed byBernhard Riemann (1826–1866)—is a broadly successful attempt to provide such a foundation. Riemann's definition starts with the construction of a sequence of easily calculated areas that converge to the integral of a given function. This definition is successful in the sense that it gives the expected answer for many already-solved problems, and gives useful results for many other problems.
However, Riemann integration does not interact well with taking limits of sequences of functions, making such limiting processes difficult to analyze. This is important, for instance, in the study ofFourier series,Fourier transforms, and other topics. The Lebesgue integral describes better how and when it is possible to take limits under the integral sign (via themonotone convergence theorem anddominated convergence theorem).
While the Riemann integral considers the area under a curve as made out of vertical rectangles, the Lebesgue definition considers horizontal slabs that are not necessarily just rectangles, and so it is more flexible. For this reason, the Lebesgue definition makes it possible to calculate integrals for a broader class of functions. For example, the Dirichlet function, which is1 where its argument isrational and0 otherwise, has a Lebesgue integral, but does not have a Riemann integral. Furthermore, the Lebesgue integral of this function is zero, which agrees with the intuition that when picking a real number uniformly at random from theunit interval, the probability of picking a rational number should be zero.
Lebesgue summarized his approach to integration in a letter toPaul Montel:
I have to pay a certain sum, which I have collected in my pocket. I take the bills and coins out of my pocket and give them to the creditor in the order I find them until I have reached the total sum. This is the Riemann integral. But I can proceed differently. After I have taken all the money out of my pocket I order the bills and coins according to identical values and then I pay the several heaps one after the other to the creditor. This is my integral.
— Source: (Siegmund-Schultze 2008)
The insight is that one should be able to rearrange the values of a function freely, while preserving the value of the integral. This process of rearrangement can convert a verypathological function into one that is "nice" from the point of view of integration, and thus let such pathological functions be integrated.

Folland (1999) summarizes the difference between the Riemann and Lebesgue approaches thus: "to compute the Riemann integral off, one partitions the domain[a,b] into subintervals", while in the Lebesgue integral, "one is in effect partitioning the range off".
For the Riemann integral, thedomain is partitioned into intervals, and bars are constructed to meet the height of the graph. The areas of these bars are added together, and this approximates the integral, in effect by summing areas of the formf(x)dx wheref(x) is the height of a rectangle anddx is its width.
For the Lebesgue integral, therange is partitioned into intervals, and so the region under the graph is partitioned into horizontal "slabs" (which may not be connected sets). The area of a small horizontal "slab" under the graph off, of heightdy, is equal to the measure of the slab's width timesdy:The Lebesgue integral may then bedefined by adding up the areas of these horizontal slabs. From this perspective, a key difference with the Riemann integral is that the "slabs" are no longer rectangular (cartesian products of two intervals), but instead are cartesian products of a measurable set with an interval.

An equivalent way to introduce the Lebesgue integral is to use so-calledsimple functions, which generalize the step functions of Riemann integration. Consider, for example, determining the cumulative COVID-19 case count from a graph of smoothed cases each day (right).
One can think of the Lebesgue integral either in terms ofslabs orsimple functions. Intuitively, the area under a simple function can be partitioned into slabs based on the (finite) collection of values in the range of a simple function (a real interval). Conversely, the (finite) collection of slabs in the undergraph of the function can be rearranged after a finite repartitioning to be the undergraph of a simple function.
Theslabs viewpoint makes it easy to define the Lebesgue integral, in terms of basic calculus. Suppose thatf is a (Lebesgue measurable) function, taking non-negative values (possibly including+∞). Define the distribution function off as the "width of a slab", i.e.,ThenF(y) is monotone decreasing and non-negative, and therefore has an (improper) Riemann integral over(0, ∞), allowing that the integral can be+∞. The Lebesgue integral can then bedefined bywhere the integral on the right is an ordinary improper Riemann integral, of a non-negative function (interpreted appropriately as+∞ ifF(y) = +∞ on a neighborhood of0).
Most textbooks, however, emphasize thesimple functions viewpoint, because it is then more straightforward to prove the basic theorems about the Lebesgue integral.
Measure theory was initially created to provide a useful abstraction of the notion of length of subsets of the real line—and, more generally, area and volume of subsets of Euclidean spaces. In particular, it provided a systematic answer to the question of which subsets ofR have a length. As laterset theory developments showed (seenon-measurable set), it is actually impossible to assign a length to all subsets ofR in a way that preserves some natural additivity and translation invariance properties. This suggests that picking out a suitable class ofmeasurable subsets is an essential prerequisite.
The Riemann integral uses the notion of length explicitly. Indeed, the element of calculation for the Riemann integral is the rectangle[a,b] × [c,d], whose area is calculated to be(b −a)(d −c). The quantityb −a is the length of the base of the rectangle andd −c is the height of the rectangle. Riemann could only use planar rectangles to approximate the area under the curve, because there was no adequate theory for measuring more general sets.
In the development of the theory in most modern textbooks (after 1950), the approach to measure and integration isaxiomatic. This means that a measure is any functionμ defined on a certain classX of subsets of a setE, which satisfies a certain list of properties. These properties can be shown to hold in many different cases.
We start with ameasure space(E,X,μ) whereE is aset,X is aσ-algebra of subsets ofE, andμ is a (non-negative)measure onE defined on the sets ofX.
For example,E can beEuclideann-spaceRn or someLebesgue measurable subset of it,X is theσ-algebra of all Lebesgue measurable subsets ofE, andμ is the Lebesgue measure. In the mathematical theory of probability, we confine our study to aprobability measure μ, which satisfiesμ(E) = 1.
Lebesgue's theory defines integrals for a class of functions calledmeasurable functions. A real-valued functionf onE is measurable if thepre-image of every interval of the form(t, ∞) is inX:
We can show that this is equivalent to requiring that the pre-image of anyBorel subset ofR be inX. The set of measurable functions is closed under algebraic operations, but more importantly it is closed under various kinds ofpoint-wise sequential limits:are measurable if the original sequence(fk), wherek ∈N, consists of measurable functions.
There are several approaches for defining an integral for measurable real-valued functionsf defined onE, and several notations are used to denote such an integral.
Following the identification inDistribution theory of measures with distributions of order0, or withRadon measures, one can also use adual pair notation and write the integral with respect toμ in the form
The theory of the Lebesgue integral requires a theory of measurable sets and measures on these sets, as well as a theory of measurable functions and integrals on these functions.

One approach to constructing the Lebesgue integral is to make use of so-calledsimple functions: finite, real linear combinations ofindicator functions. Simple functions that lie directly underneath a given functionf can be constructed by partitioning the range off into a finite number of layers. The intersection of the graph off with a layer identifies a set of intervals in the domain off, which, taken together, is defined to be the preimage of the lower bound of that layer, under the simple function. In this way, the partitioning of the range off implies a partitioning of its domain. The integral of a simple function is found by summing, over these (not necessarily connected) subsets of the domain, the product of the measure of the subset and its image under the simple function (the lower bound of the corresponding layer); intuitively, this product is the sum of the areas of all bars of the same height. The integral of a non-negative general measurable function is then defined as an appropriatesupremum of approximations by simple functions, and the integral of a (not necessarily positive) measurable function is the difference of two integrals of non-negative measurable functions.[1]
To assign a value to the integral of theindicator function1S of a measurable setS consistent with the givenmeasureμ, the only reasonable choice is to set:
Notice that the result may be equal to+∞, unlessμ is afinite measure.
A finitelinear combination of indicator functionswhere the coefficientsak are real numbers andSk are disjoint measurable sets, is called a measurablesimple function. We extend the integral by linearity tonon-negative measurable simple functions. When the coefficientsak are positive, we setwhether this sum is finite or+∞. A simple function can be written in different ways as a linear combination of indicator functions, but the integral will be the same by the additivity of measures.
Some care is needed when defining the integral of areal-valued simple function, to avoid the undefined expression∞ − ∞: one assumes that the representationis such thatμ(Sk) < ∞ wheneverak ≠ 0. Then the above formula for the integral off makes sense, and the result does not depend upon the particular representation off satisfying the assumptions.[2] (It is important that the representation be afinite linear combination, i.e. thatk only take on a finite number of values.)
IfB is a measurable subset ofE ands is a measurable simple function one defines
Letf be a non-negative measurable function onE, which we allow to attain the value+∞, in other words,f takes non-negative values in theextended real number line. We define
We need to show this integral coincides with the preceding one, defined on the set of simple functions, whenE is a segment[a,b]. There is also the question of whether this corresponds in any way to a Riemann notion of integration. It is possible to prove that the answer to both questions is yes.
We have defined the integral off for any non-negative extended real-valued measurable function onE. For some functions, this integral is infinite.
It is often useful to have a particular sequence of simple functions that approximates the Lebesgue integral well (analogously to a Riemann sum). For a non-negative measurable functionf, letsn(x) be the simple function whose value isk/2n wheneverk/2n ≤f(x) < (k + 1)/2n, fork a non-negative integer less than, say,4n. Then it can be proven directly thatand that the limit on the right hand side exists as an extended real number. This bridges the connection between the approach to the Lebesgue integral using simple functions, and the motivation for the Lebesgue integral using a partition of the range.
To handle signed functions, we need a few more definitions. Iff is a measurable function of the setE to the reals (including±∞), then we can writewhere
Note that bothf+ andf− are non-negative measurable functions. Also note that
We say that the Lebesgue integral of the measurable functionfexists, oris defined if at least one of and is finite:
In this case wedefine
Ifwe say thatf isLebesgue integrable. That is,f belongs to thespaceL1.[3]
It turns out that this definition gives the desirable properties of the integral.
Assuming thatf is measurable and non-negative, the functionis monotonically non-increasing. The Lebesgue integral may then be defined as theimproper Riemann integral off∗:[4]This integral is improper at the upper limit of∞, and possibly also at zero. It exists, with the allowance that it may be infinite.[5][6]
As above, the integral of a Lebesgue integrable (not necessarily non-negative) function is defined by subtracting the integral of its positive and negative parts.
Complex-valued functions can be similarly integrated, by considering the real part and the imaginary part separately.[7]
Ifh =f +ig for real-valued integrable functionsf,g, then the integral ofh is defined by
The function is Lebesgue integrable if and only if itsabsolute value is Lebesgue integrable (seeAbsolutely integrable function).
Consider theindicator function of the rational numbers,1Q, also known as the Dirichlet function. This function isnowhere continuous.
A technical issue in Lebesgue integration is that the domain of integration is defined as aset (a subset of a measure space), with no notion of orientation. In elementary calculus, one defines integration with respect to anorientation:Generalizing this to higher dimensions yields integration ofdifferential forms. By contrast, Lebesgue integration provides an alternative generalization, integrating over subsets with respect to a measure; this can be notated asto indicate integration over a subsetA. For details on the relation between these generalizations, seeDifferential form § Relation with measures. The main theory linking these ideas is that ofhomological integration (sometimes called geometric integration theory), pioneered byGeorges de Rham andHassler Whitney.[8]
With the advent ofFourier series, many analytical problems involving integrals arose whose satisfactory solution required interchanging limit processes and integral signs. However, the conditions under which the integralsare equal proved quite elusive in the Riemann framework. There are some other technical difficulties with the Riemann integral. These are linked with the limit-taking difficulty discussed above.
As shown above, theindicator function1Q on the rationals is not Riemann integrable. In particular, theMonotone convergence theorem fails. To see why, let{ak} be an enumeration of all the rational numbers in[0, 1] (they arecountable so this can be done). Then let
The functiongk is zero everywhere, except on a finite set of points. Hence its Riemann integral is zero. Eachgk is non-negative, and this sequence of functions is monotonically increasing, but its limit ask → ∞ is1Q, which is not Riemann integrable.
The Riemann integral in its original form is defined over a closed bounded interval of the real line for real functions that are defined on the interval's entirety and continuousalmost everywhere within it. It can, however, be extended to the complex plane, Euclidean space or unions of integrable regions with similar limitations. Animproper Riemann integral, meanwhile, can integrate a function by taking limits on unbounded intervals or at points at which the function is not defined so long as the proper integral approaches a limit as the region of proper integration approaches the desired region of improper integration. While improper integration is an advantage of the Riemann integral, many Lebesgue-integrable functions are not well behaved enough or are defined on domains that are too irregular to be suitable for proper Riemann integration.
The Riemann integral is inextricably linked to the order structure of the real line.
Two functions are said to be equalalmost everywhere ( for short) if is a subset of anull set. Measurability of the set isnot required.
The following theorems are proved in most textbooks on measure theory and Lebesgue integration.[9]
Necessary and sufficient conditions for the interchange of limits and integrals were proved by Cafiero,[10][11][12][13] generalizing earlier work of Renato Caccioppoli, Vladimir Dubrovskii, and Gaetano Fichera.[14]
It is possible to develop the integral with respect to the Lebesgue measure without relying on the full machinery of measure theory. One such approach is provided by theDaniell integral.
There is also an alternative approach to developing the theory of integration via methods offunctional analysis. The Riemann integral exists for any continuous functionf ofcompactsupport defined onRn (or a fixed open subset). Integrals of more general functions can be built starting from these integrals.
LetCc be the space of all real-valued compactly supported continuous functions ofR. Define a norm onCc by
ThenCc is a normed vector space (and in particular, it is a metric space.) All metric spaces haveHausdorff completions, so letL1 be its completion. This space is isomorphic to the space of Lebesgue integrable functions modulo the subspace of functions with integral zero. Furthermore, the Riemann integral∫ is auniformly continuous functional with respect to the norm onCc, which is dense inL1. Hence∫ has a unique extension to all ofL1. This integral is precisely the Lebesgue integral.
More generally, when the measure space on which the functions are defined is also alocally compacttopological space (as is the case with the real numbersR), measures compatible with the topology in a suitable sense (Radon measures, of which the Lebesgue measure is an example) an integral with respect to them can be defined in the same manner, starting from the integrals ofcontinuous functions withcompact support. More precisely, the compactly supported functions form avector space that carries a naturaltopology, and a (Radon) measure is defined as a continuouslinear functional on this space. The value of a measure at a compactly supported function is then also by definition the integral of the function. One then proceeds to expand the measure (the integral) to more general functions by continuity, and defines the measure of a set as the integral of its indicator function. This is the approach taken by Nicolas Bourbaki[15] and a certain number of other authors. For details seeRadon measures.
The main purpose of the Lebesgue integral is to provide an integral notion where limits of integrals hold under mild assumptions. There is no guarantee that every function is Lebesgue integrable. But it may happen thatimproper integrals exist for functions that are not Lebesgue integrable. One example would be thesinc function:over the entire real line. This function is not Lebesgue integrable, asOn the other hand, exists as an improper integral and can be computed to be finite; it is twice theDirichlet integral and equal toπ.