Trigonometric substitution

A trigonometric substitution is integration by substitution using a trigonometric function to simplify an integrand, especially a square root. For example, $x=a\sin u$, with $a>0$ and $-\pi /2\le u\le \pi /2$, changes $\sqrt{a^2-x^2}$ to $a\cos u$ and $dx$ to $a\cos udu$. The interval restriction fixes the sign of the square root. Similarly $x=a\tan u$ simplifies $\sqrt{a^2+x^2}$. The transformed integral must include the differential and, for a definite integral, the new limits.