Integral Evaluation Using the Mellin Transform and Generalized Hypergeometric Functions: Tutorial and Applications to Antenna Problems

This is a tutorial presentation of the Mellin-transform (MT) method for the exact calculation of one-dimensional definite integrals, and an illustration of the application of this method to antenna/electromagnetics problems. Once the basics have been mastered, one quickly realizes that the MT-method is extremely powerful, often yielding closed-form expressions very difficult to come up with other methods or to deduce from the usual tables of integrals. Yet, as opposed to other methods, the MT-method is very straightforward to apply; it usually requires laborious calculations, but little ingenuity. In fact, the MT-method is used by Mathematica to symbolically calculate definite integrals. The first part of this paper is a step-by-step tutorial, proceeding from first principles. It includes basic information on Mellin-Barnes integrals and generalized hypergeometric functions, and summarizes the key ideas of the MT-method. In the remaining parts, the MT-method is applied to three examples from the antenna area. The results here are believed to be new, at least in the antenna/electromagnetics literature. In our first example, we obtain a closed-form expression, as a generalized hypergeometric function, for the power radiated by a constant-current circular-loop antenna; this quantity has been extensively discussed recently. Our second example concerns the admittance of a 2-D slot antenna. In both these examples, the exact closed-form expressions are applied to improve upon existing formulas in standard antenna textbooks. In our third example, finally, we obtain a very simple expression for an integral arising in recent, unpublished studies of unbounded, biaxially anisotropic media.