If the correlation function decays exponentially
ϕ(t)∼exp(−t/τ)then the exponential correlation time can be computed as the average
τexp=−⟨tlog|ϕ(t)ϕ(0)|⟩.If the decay is exponential, then
∫∞0dtϕ(t)=∫∞0dtϕ(0)exp(−t/τ)=τϕ(0),which suggests another measure of correlation
τint=∑kϕ(k)ϕ(0),called the integrated correlation time.