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I am trying to solve for a variable which appears in the limits of an integral, rather like in the following;

Clear[f, a, x] f[a_] := Integrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a }] f[Power[6, (3)^-1]] NSolve[5 == f[a], a, Reals]

This works absolutely fine. But the integral I really care about is a mess, and so has, of course, no nice closed form. So I try the following;

Clear[f, a, x] f[a_] := NIntegrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a }] f[Power[6, (3)^-1]] NSolve[5 == f[a], a, Reals]

and this does not work. Instead I get NIntegrate::nlim: x = a is not a valid limit of integration. In both of these examples, the third line evaluates the function f[a] fine. I also tried

f[a_?NumericQ] := NIntegrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a }]

which fails with NSolve::nsmet: This system cannot be solved with the methods available to NSolve.

I rather hoped the link below would answer my problem, but of course it refers to Integrate, not NIntegrate.

https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/38012/compute-unknown-limit-from-known-integral-in-mathematica

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions.

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3 Answers 3

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  1. When a is a symbol in f[a_] := NIntegrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a }] you won't get the result.
  2. Defining f[a_?NumericQ] :=NIntegrate[...] it can't work in NSolve[5 == f[a], a, Reals] since a is assumed to be a Symbol therein.

You can use 

FindRoot[f[a] - 5, {a, 1}] 
{{a -> 1.81712}}

or you should define f this way:

f[a_] := Integrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a}]
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Use FindRoot[]

Clear[f, a, x] x0 = Power[6, (3)^-1]; f[a_?NumericQ] := NIntegrate[x^2 + a x, {x, 0, a}] (a /. FindRoot[f[a] == 5, {a, 1}]) == N@x0 (* True *)
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What I would suggest is to do a scan of f[a] over a range of a's that you're interested in. You define an interpolation function to smooth out these values, then either FindRoot or NDSolve f[x] == 5.

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