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Iterative and Direct Determinations of the Gravitational Potential of Axisymmetric Mass Distributions in Spherical Coordinates
Author(s) -
Tschaepe R.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.2113050103
Subject(s) - rotational symmetry , physics , gravitational potential , spherical coordinate system , poisson distribution , gravitation , poisson's equation , iterative method , classical mechanics , mathematical analysis , mathematics , mechanics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , statistics
Highly flattened objects may appear in early stages as well as in late stages of stellar evolution. The calulation of their axisymmetric gravitational potential in spherical coordinates requires a lot of computer time. In this paper we compare iterative solutions of the Poisson differential equation with direct evaluations of the Poisson integral with respect to accuracy and time consumption. further, we derived a fast direct method which is superior in computer time to the discussed methods whereas its accuracy remains nearly unchanged.