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The Heaviside step function is a mathematical function denoted , or sometimes or (Abramowitz and
Stegun 1972, p. 1020), and also known as the "unit step function." The term "Heaviside step function" and its symbol
can represent either a piecewise constant function or a generalized function.

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About MathWorld When defined as a piecewise constant function, the Heaviside step function is given by
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(1)
MathWorld Book

(Abramowitz and Stegun 1972, p. 1020; Bracewell 2000, p. 61). The plot above shows this function (left figure), and
Wolfram Web Resources » how it would appear if displayed on an oscilloscope (right figure).
13,641 entries
Last updated: Thu Mar 29 2018 When defined as a generalized function, it can be defined as a function such that

Created, developed, and

nurtured by Eric Weisstein (2)
at Wolfram Research
for the derivative of a sufficiently smooth function that decays sufficiently quickly (Kanwal 1998).

The Wolfram Language represents the Heaviside generalized function as HeavisideTheta, while using UnitStep
to represent the piecewise function Piecewise[ 1, x >= 0 ] (which, it should be noted, adopts the convention
instead of the conventional definition ).

The shorthand notation

(3)

is sometimes also used.

The Heaviside step function is related to the boxcar function by

(4)

and can be defined in terms of the sign function by

(5)

The derivative of the step function is given by

(6)

where is the delta function (Bracewell 2000, p. 97).

The Heaviside step function is related to the ramp function by

(7)

and to the derivative of by

(8)

The two are also connected through

(9)

where denotes convolution.

Bracewell (2000) gives many identities, some of which include the following. Letting denote the convolution,

(10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

In addition,

(15)

(16)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html 29/03/2018
Heaviside Step Function -- from Wolfram MathWorld Page 2 of 3

The Heaviside step function can be defined by the following limits,

(17)

(18)

(19)

(20)

(21)

(22)

(23)

(24)

(25)

(26)

(27)

where is the erfc function, is the sine integral, is the sinc function, and is the one-argument
triangle function. The first four of these are illustrated above for , 0.1, and 0.01.

Of course, any monotonic function with constant unequal horizontal asymptotes is a Heaviside step function under
appropriate scaling and possible reflection. The Fourier transform of the Heaviside step function is given by

(28)

(29)

where is the delta function.

SEE ALSO:
Absolute Value, Boxcar Function, Delta Function, Fourier Transform--Heaviside Step Function, Ramp Function,
Rectangle Function, Sigmoid Function, Sign, Square Wave, Triangle Function

RELATED WOLFRAM SITES:

http://functions.wolfram.com/GeneralizedFunctions/UnitStep/,
http://functions.wolfram.com/GeneralizedFunctions/UnitStep2/

REFERENCES:
Abramowitz, M. and Stegun, I. A. (Eds.). Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables,
9th printing. New York: Dover, 1972.
Bracewell, R. "Heaviside's Unit Step Function, ." The Fourier Transform and Its Applications, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-
Hill, pp. 61-65, 2000.
Kanwal, R. P. Generalized Functions: Theory and Technique, 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Birkhäuser, 1998.
Spanier, J. and Oldham, K. B. "The Unit-Step and Related Functions." Ch. 8 in An Atlas of Functions. Washington, DC:
Hemisphere, pp. 63-69, 1987.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha: Heaviside Step Function

CITE THIS AS:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Heaviside Step Function." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html 29/03/2018
Heaviside Step Function -- from Wolfram MathWorld
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