NAG FL Interface
s15adf (erfc_​real)

1 Purpose

s15adf returns the value of the complementary error function, erfcx, via the function name.

2 Specification

Fortran Interface
Function s15adf ( x, ifail)
Real (Kind=nag_wp) :: s15adf
Integer, Intent (Inout) :: ifail
Real (Kind=nag_wp), Intent (In) :: x
C Header Interface
#include <nag.h>
double  s15adf_ (const double *x, Integer *ifail)
The routine may be called by the names s15adf or nagf_specfun_erfc_real.

3 Description

s15adf calculates an approximate value for the complement of the error function
erfcx = 2π x e-t2 dt = 1-erfx .  
Let x^ be the root of the equation erfcx-erfx=0 (then x^0.46875). For xx^ the value of erfcx is based on the following rational Chebyshev expansion for erfx:
erfx xR,m x2 ,  
where R,m denotes a rational function of degree in the numerator and m in the denominator.
For x>x^ the value of erfcx is based on a rational Chebyshev expansion for erfcx: for x^<x4 the value is based on the expansion
erfcx ex2 R,m x ;  
and for x>4 it is based on the expansion
erfcx ex2 x 1π + 1x2 R,m 1/x2 .  
For each expansion, the specific values of and m are selected to be minimal such that the maximum relative error in the expansion is of the order 10-d, where d is the maximum number of decimal digits that can be accurately represented for the particular implementation (see x02bef).
For xxhi there is a danger of setting underflow in erfcx (the value of xhi is given in the Users' Note for your implementation). For xxhi, s15adf returns erfcx=0; for x-xhi it returns erfcx=2.

4 References

NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions
Cody W J (1969) Rational Chebyshev approximations for the error function Math.Comp. 23 631–637

5 Arguments

1: x Real (Kind=nag_wp) Input
On entry: the argument x of the function.
2: ifail Integer Input/Output
On entry: ifail must be set to 0, -1 or 1. If you are unfamiliar with this argument you should refer to Section 4 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for details.
For environments where it might be inappropriate to halt program execution when an error is detected, the value -1 or 1 is recommended. If the output of error messages is undesirable, then the value 1 is recommended. Otherwise, if you are not familiar with this argument, the recommended value is 0. When the value -1 or 1 is used it is essential to test the value of ifail on exit.
On exit: ifail=0 unless the routine detects an error or a warning has been flagged (see Section 6).

6 Error Indicators and Warnings

There are no failure exits from s15adf. The argument ifail has been included for consistency with other routines in this chapter.

7 Accuracy

If δ and ε are relative errors in the argument and result, respectively, then in principle
ε 2x e -x2 πerfcx δ .  
That is, the relative error in the argument, x, is amplified by a factor 2xe-x2 πerfcx in the result.
The behaviour of this factor is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Figure 1
It should be noted that near x=0 this factor behaves as 2xπ and hence the accuracy is largely determined by the machine precision. Also, for large negative x, where the factor is xe-x2π, accuracy is mainly limited by machine precision. However, for large positive x, the factor becomes 2x2 and to an extent relative accuracy is necessarily lost. The absolute accuracy E is given by
E 2xe-x2π δ  
so absolute accuracy is guaranteed for all x.

8 Parallelism and Performance

s15adf is not threaded in any implementation.

9 Further Comments

None.

10 Example

This example reads values of the argument x from a file, evaluates the function at each value of x and prints the results.

10.1 Program Text

Program Text (s15adfe.f90)

10.2 Program Data

Program Data (s15adfe.d)

10.3 Program Results

Program Results (s15adfe.r)