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wrkdirs::usr...::man::w_of_z(3)  libcerf manual  wrkdirs::usr...::man::w_of_z(3)

NAME
     w_of_z, im_w_of_x - Faddeeva's rescaled complex error function

SYNOPSIS
     #include <cerf.h>

     double _Complex w_of_z ( double _Complex z );

     double im_w_of_x ( double x );

DESCRIPTION
     Faddeeva's rescaled complex error function w(z), also called the plasma
     dispersion function.

     w_of_z returns w(z) = exp(-z^2) * erfc(-i*z).

     im_w_of_x returns Im[w(x)].

REFERENCES
     To compute w(z), a combination of two algorithms is used:

     For sufficiently large |z|, a continued-fraction expansion similar to those
     described by Gautschi (1970) and Poppe & Wijers (1990).

     Otherwise, Algorithm 916 by Zaghloul & Ali (2011), which is generally com-
     petitive at small |z|, and more accurate than the Poppe & Wijers expansion
     in some regions, e.g. in the vicinity of z=1+i.

     To compute Im[w(x)], Chebyshev polynomials and continous fractions are
     used.

     Milton Abramowitz and Irene M. Stegun, "Handbook of Mathematical Func-
     tions", National Bureau of Standards (1964): Formula (7.1.3) introduces the
     nameless function w(z).

     Walter Gautschi, "Efficient computation of the complex error function,"
     SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 7, 187 (1970).

     G. P. M. Poppe and C. M. J. Wijers, "More efficient computation of the com-
     plex error function," ACM Trans. Math. Soft. 16, 38 (1990).

     Mofreh R. Zaghloul and Ahmed N. Ali, "Algorithm 916: Computing the
     Faddeyeva and Voigt Functions," ACM Trans. Math. Soft. 38, 15 (2011).

     Steven G. Johnson, http://ab-initio.mit.edu/Faddeeva

     The implementation of im_w_of_x is self-contained. It has been entirely
     rewritten for libcerf-2.5, and now guarantees a relative accuracy of
     2.37e-16 for |x| < 12.

     The piecewise polynomial approximation for intermediate values of |x| is
     explained in Wuttke and Kleinknecht, "Code generation for piecewise Cheby-
     shev approximation" (submitted; preprint available from the authors).

SEE ALSO
     This function is used to compute several other complex error functions:
     dawson(3), voigt(3), cerf(3), erfcx(3), erfi(3).

     Homepage: http://apps.jcns.fz-juelich.de/libcerf

AUTHORS
     Steven G. Johnson, http://math.mit.edu/~stevenj,
       Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
       researched the numerics, and implemented the Faddeeva function.

     Joachim Wuttke <j.wuttke@fz-juelich.de>, Forschungszentrum Juelich,
       reorganized the code into a library, and wrote this man page.

     Please report bugs to the authors.

COPYING
     Copyright (c) 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

     Copyright (c) 2013-25 Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH

     Software: MIT License.

     This documentation: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike.

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