Spherical harmonics

From SklogWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

The spherical harmonics Y_l^m (\theta,\phi) are the angular portion of the solution to Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates. They are given by

Y_l^m (\theta,\phi) = (-1)^m \sqrt{\frac{2n+1}{4\pi}\frac{(n-m)!}{(n+m)!}} P^m_n(\cos\theta) e^{i m \phi},

where P^m_n is the associated Legendre function.

The first few spherical harmonics are given by:

Y_0^0 (\theta,\phi) = \frac{1}{2} \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi}}
Y_1^{-1} (\theta,\phi) = \frac{1}{2} \sqrt{\frac{3}{2\pi}} \sin \theta e^{-i\phi}
Y_1^0 (\theta,\phi) = \frac{1}{2} \sqrt{\frac{3}{\pi}} \cos \theta
Y_1^1 (\theta,\phi) = -\frac{1}{2} \sqrt{\frac{3}{2\pi}} \sin \theta e^{i\phi}

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Retrieved from "http://www.sklogwiki.org/SklogWiki/index.php/Spherical_harmonics"
Personal tools