Errors, condition numbers, and guaranteed accuracy of higher-dimensional spherical cubatures

We give upper bounds for the deviation of the norm of a perturbed error functional from the norm of the original error of a higher-dimensional spherical cubature formula. The deviation arises as a result of the combined influence on the computation of small variations of the weights of the cubature formula and rounding for the subsequent calculation of the cubature sum in the given standards of approximation to real numbers. We estimate the practical error of the cubature formula for its action on an arbitrary function in the unit ball of the normed space of integrands. The resulting estimates are applied to studying the practical error of spherical cubature formulas in the case of integrands in Sobolev-type spaces on the higher-dimensional unit sphere. We represent the norm of the error functional in the dual space of the Sobolev class as a positive definite quadratic form in the weights of the cubature formula. We estimate the practical error for spherical cubature formulas, each of which is constructed as the direct product of Gauss’s quadrature formula along the meridian of the sphere and of the rectangle quadrature formula along the equator. The weights of this direct product with 2m ² nodes are positive. The formula itself is exact at all spherical harmonics up to order 2m ? 1.