Finding enclosed area

areaintegration

Hints only please !!
I gave a test today, and it was asked to find area enclosed by the curve $x^4 + y^4 = 2*x*y$. This is an implicit function. A quick obs. shows me that, the curve is entirely bound and (1,1)&(-1,-1) are the interesting points beside origin.
To find the area, I attempted
$ I = \int y dx $ taking by parts but to no avail as I am neither getting the required limits, nor a well-known function by manipulation.
I searched for similar problems; they used polar substitution. I am finding it to be clumsy and maybe not appropriate for this integral. Please give a hint as to how proceed.

Best Answer

Setting $x=r \cos(\theta), y = r \sin(\theta)$ (the classical change of variables : polar $\to$ cartesian) in your equation gives

$$r^4(\underbrace{(\cos(\theta)^2+\sin(\theta)^2)^2}_{=1}-\underbrace{2\cos(\theta)^2.\sin(\theta)^2}_{\tfrac12 \sin(2 \theta)})=r^2 \underbrace{2 \cos(\theta).\sin(\theta)}_{\tfrac12 \sin(2 \theta)}.$$

Simplifying by $r^2$ and taking the square root, one gets :

$$r(\theta)=\sqrt{\dfrac{\sin(2\theta)}{1-\tfrac12\sin(2\theta)^2}} \ \ \ \text{if} \ \ \ \sin{2 \theta} \geq 0$$

The last condition means that the curve will exist if $0 \leq \theta \leq \pi/2$ (first quadrant) and/or $\pi \leq \theta \leq 3\pi/2$ (third quadrant). No part of the curve in the second and fourth quadrants.

It remains to integrate to obtain the area enclosed by the curve:

$$A=\frac12\int_0^{2 \pi}r(\theta)^2 d \theta$$

BUT, this integral is equal to $0$ because we turn once in the positive sense, once in the negative one. We have to take a serious look at the curve :

enter image description here

We are obliged, if we want to have the unsigned area of a "petal" to integrate from $0$ to $\pi/2$ (and afterwards double the result as a final answer). Up to you for the calculations (as you desire mainly hints).

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