Beyond Taylor: Divergence-Based Functional Expansions and Their Application to Numerical Integration

Abstract

This paper introduces a new functional expansion framework that extends classical ideas beyond the Taylor series. Unlike traditional Taylor expansions based on local polynomial approximations, the proposed approach arises from exact differential identities that link a function and its derivatives through polynomial weight factors. This formulation expresses smooth functions via divergence-based relations connecting derivatives of all orders with systematically scaled polynomial coefficients. This framework provides a natural foundation for constructing high-order numerical quadrature formulas, particularly for multi-dimensional domains. By exploiting the divergence structure, volume integrals are systematically transformed into boundary integrals using the Divergence Theorem, recursively reducing the integration domain from an $n$-dimensional body to its $(n-1)$-dimensional facets, and ultimately to its vertices. The article further enhances the framework's accuracy by introducing a complex-shift technique. It is demonstrated that by positioning the expansion center at specific roots of unity in the complex plane, lower-order error terms are annihilated, yielding high-order real-valued quadrature rules with minimal function evaluations. Additionally, a rigorous geometric analysis of the affine transformations required for surface integration is provided, deriving explicit formulas for the transformation of normal vectors and surface measures. The proposed method offers a robust, systematic, and computationally efficient alternative to tessellation-based quadrature for arbitrary flat-faced polytopes.