Also known as cylinder function of the first kind, Bessel function of the first kind
Notable quotes
“When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don’t know why. As I’m talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Ernde’s book, with light-tan j’s, slightly violet-bluish n’s, and dark brown x’s flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students.”
— Richard Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988), It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three…
“[To use spherical harmonies or Bessel functions is] to be able to start in mathematics in Cambridge just about the place where some of the best mathematical men now end their studies forever.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.
Bessel functions are a class of special functions that commonly appear in problems involving wave motion, heat conduction, and other physical phenomena with circular or cylindrical symmetry. They are named after the German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel, who studied them systematically in 1824.
Bessel functions are a class of special functions that commonly appear in problems involving wave motion, heat conduction, and other physical phenomena with circular or cylindrical symmetry. They are named after the German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel, who studied them systematically in 1824.
Bessel functions are solutions to a particular type of ordinary differential equation:
is a number that determines the shape of the solution. This number is called the order of the Bessel function and can be any complex number. Although the same equation arises for both
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
and
−
α
{\displaystyle -\alpha }
, mathematicians define separate Bessel functions for each to ensure the functions behave smoothly as the order changes.
The most important cases are when
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is an integer or a half-integer. When
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is an integer, the resulting Bessel functions are often called cylinder functions or cylindrical harmonics because they naturally arise when solving problems (like Laplace's equation) in cylindrical coordinates. When
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is a half-integer, the solutions are called spherical Bessel functions and are used in spherical systems, such as in solving the Helmholtz equation in spherical coordinates.
Contents
Applications
Bessel's equation arises when finding separable solutions to Laplace's equation and the Helmholtz equation in cylindrical or spherical coordinates. Bessel functions are therefore especially important for many problems of wave propagation and static potentials. In solving problems in cylindrical coordinate systems, one obtains Bessel functions of integer order (
α
=
n
{\displaystyle \alpha =n}
); in spherical problems, one obtains half-integer orders (
α
=
n
+
1
/
2
{\displaystyle \alpha =n+1/2}
). For example:
Electromagnetic waves in a cylindrical waveguide
Pressure amplitudes of inviscid rotational flows
Heat conduction in a cylindrical object
Modes of vibration of a thin circular or annular acoustic membrane (such as a drumhead or other membranophone) or thicker plates such as sheet metal (see Kirchhoff–Love plate theory, Mindlin–Reissner plate theory)
Diffusion problems on a lattice
Solutions to the Schrödinger equation in spherical and cylindrical coordinates for a free particle
Definitions
Because this is a linear differential equation, solutions can be scaled to any amplitude. The amplitudes chosen for the functions originate from the early work in which the functions appeared as solutions to definite integrals rather than solutions to differential equations. Because the differential equation is second-order, there must be two linearly independent solutions: one of the first kind and one of the second kind. Depending upon the circumstances, however, various formulations of these solutions are convenient. Different variations are summarized in the table below and described in the following sections. The subscript n is typically used in place of
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
when
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is known to be an integer.
Bessel functions of the second kind and the spherical Bessel functions of the second kind are sometimes denoted by Nn and nn, respectively, rather than Yn and yn.
Bessel functions of the first kind: Jα
Bessel functions of the first kind, denoted as Jα(x), are solutions of Bessel's differential equation. For integer or positive α, Bessel functions of the first kind are finite at the origin (x = 0); while for negative non-integer α, Bessel functions of the first kind diverge as x approaches zero. It is possible to define the function by
x
α
{\displaystyle x^{\alpha }}
times a Maclaurin series (note that α need not be an integer, and non-integer powers are not permitted in a Taylor series), which can be found by applying the Frobenius method to Bessel's equation:
J
α
(
x
)
=
∑
m
=
0
∞
(
−
1
)
m
m
!
Γ
(
m
+
α
+
Bessel functions of the second kind: Yα
The Bessel functions of the second kind, denoted by Yα(x), occasionally denoted instead by Nα(x), are solutions of the Bessel differential equation that have a singularity at the origin (x = 0) and are multivalued. These are sometimes called Weber functions, as they were introduced by H. M. Weber (1873), and also Neumann functions after Carl Neumann.
For non-integer α, Yα(x) is related to Jα(x) by
Y
α
(
x
)
=
J
α
(
x
)
cos
(
α
π
)
−
J
−
α
(
x
)
sin
(
α
π
)
Hankel functions: H(1)α, H(2)α
Another important formulation of the two linearly independent solutions to Bessel's equation are the Hankel functions of the first and second kind, H(1)α(x) and H(2)α(x), defined as
H
α
(
1
)
(
x
)
=
J
α
(
x
)
+
i
Y
α
(
x
)
,
H
α
(
2
)
(
x
)
=
J
α
(
x
Modified Bessel functions: Iα, Kα
The Bessel functions are valid even for complex arguments x, and an important special case is that of a purely imaginary argument. In this case, the solutions to the Bessel equation are called the modified Bessel functions (or occasionally the hyperbolic Bessel functions) of the first and second kind and are defined as
I
α
(
x
)
=
i
−
α
J
α
(
i
x
)
=
∑
m
=
0
∞
1
m
!
Γ
(
m
+
α
+
1
)
(
Spherical Bessel functions: jn, yn
When solving the Helmholtz equation in spherical coordinates by separation of variables, the radial equation has the form
The two linearly independent solutions to this equation are called the spherical Bessel functions jn and yn, and are related to the ordinary Bessel functions Jn and Yn by
Spherical Hankel functions: h(1)n, h(2)n
There are also spherical analogues of the Hankel functions:
h
n
(
1
)
(
x
)
=
j
n
(
x
)
+
i
y
n
(
x
)
,
h
n
(
2
)
(
x
)
=
j
n
(
x
)
Riccati–Bessel functions: Sn, Cn, ξn, ζn
Riccati–Bessel functions only slightly differ from spherical Bessel functions:
S
n
(
x
)
=
x
j
n
(
x
)
=
π
x
2
J
n
+
1
2
(
x
)
C
n
(
x
)
=
−
x
y
n
(
Asymptotic forms
The Bessel functions have the following asymptotic forms. For small arguments
In 1929, Carl Ludwig Siegel proved that Jν(x), J'ν(x), and the logarithmic derivative J'ν(x)/Jν(x) are transcendental numbers when ν is rational and x is algebraic and nonzero. The same proof also implies that
Γ
(
v
+
1
)
(
2
/
x
)
v
J
v
(
x
)
{\displaystyle \Gamma (v+1)(2/x)^{v}J_{v}(x)}
is transcendental under the same assumptions.
Sums with Bessel functions
The product of two Bessel functions admits the following sum:
The Bessel functions obey a multiplication theorem
λ
−
ν
J
ν
(
λ
z
)
=
∑
n
=
0
∞
1
n
!
(
(
1
−
λ
2
)
z
2
)
n
J
ν
+
n
(
z
)
Zeros of the Bessel function
Bourget's hypothesis
Bessel himself originally proved that for nonnegative integers n, the equation Jn(x) = 0 has an infinite number of solutions in x. When the functions Jn(x) are plotted on the same graph, though, none of the zeros seem to coincide for different values of n except for the zero at x = 0. This phenomenon is known as Bourget's hypothesis after the 19th-century French mathematician who studied Bessel functions. Specifically it states that for any integers n ≥ 0 and m ≥ 1, the functions Jn(x) and Jn + m(x) have no common zeros other than the one at x = 0. The hypothesis was proved by Carl Ludwig Siegel in 1929.
Transcendence
Siegel proved in 1929 that when ν is rational, all nonzero roots of Jν(x) and J'ν(x) are transcendental, as are all the roots of Kν(x). It is also known that all roots of the higher derivatives
J
ν
(
n
)
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{\nu }^{(n)}(x)}
for n ≤ 18 are transcendental, except for the special values
J
1
(
3
)
(
±
3
)
=
0
{\displaystyle J_{1}^{(3)}(\pm {\sqrt {3}})=0}
and
J
0
(
4
)
(
±
3
Numerical approaches
For numerical studies about the zeros of the Bessel function, see Gil, Segura & Temme (2007), Kravanja et al. (1998) and Moler (2004).
Numerical values
The first zeros in J0 (i.e., j0,1, j0,2 and j0,3) occur at arguments of approximately 2.40483, 5.52008 and 8.65373, respectively.
History
Waves and elasticity problems
The first appearance of a Bessel function appears in the work of Daniel Bernoulli in 1732, while working on the analysis of a vibrating string, a problem that was tackled before by his father Johann Bernoulli. Daniel considered a flexible chain suspended from a fixed point above and free at its lower end. The solution of the differential equation led to the introduction of a function that is now considered
J
0
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{0}(x)}
. Bernoulli also developed a method to find the zeros of the function.
Leonhard Euler in 1736, found a link between other functions (now known as Laguerre polynomials) and Bernoulli's solution. Euler also introduced a non-uniform chain that led to the introduction of functions now related to modified Bessel functions
I
n
(
x
)
{\displaystyle I_{n}(x)}
.
In the middle of the eighteen century, Jean le Rond d'Alembert had found a formula to solve the wave equation. By 1771 there was dispute between Bernoulli, Euler, d'Alembert and Joseph-Louis Lagrange on the nature of the solutions of vibrating strings.
Euler worked in 1778 on buckling, introducing the concept of Euler's critical load. To solve the problem he introduced the series for
J
Astronomical problems
In 1770, Lagrange introduced the series expansion of Bessel functions to solve Kepler's equation, a transcendental equation in astronomy. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel had seen Lagrange's solution but found it difficult to handle. In 1813 in a letter to Carl Friedrich Gauss, Bessel simplified the calculation using trigonometric functions. Bessel published his work in 1819, independently introducing the method of Fourier series unaware of the work of Fourier which was published later.
In 1824, Bessel carried out a systematic investigation of the functions, which earned the functions his name. In older literature the functions were called cylindrical functions or even Bessel–Fourier functions.
Article from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), where it is maintained by volunteer editors.
Position space representation of the Feynman propagator in quantum field theory
Solving for patterns of acoustical radiation
Frequency-dependent friction in circular pipelines
Dynamics of floating bodies
Angular resolution
X-ray crystallography of helical structures, including DNA and the alpha helix of proteins
Probability density function of product of two normally distributed random variables
Analyzing of the surface waves generated by microtremors, in geophysics and seismology.
Bessel functions also appear in other fields, such as signal processing (e.g., see FM audio synthesis, Kaiser window, or Bessel filter). They also appear in pure mathematics as part of the Fourier expansion of Maass forms.
where Γ(z) is the gamma function, a shifted generalization of the factorial function to non-integer values. Some earlier authors define the Bessel function of the first kind differently, essentially without the division by
2
{\displaystyle 2}
in
x
/
2
{\displaystyle x/2}
; this definition is not used in this article. The Bessel function of the first kind is an entire function if α is an integer, otherwise it is a multivalued function with singularity at zero. The graphs of Bessel functions look roughly like oscillating sine or cosine functions that decay proportionally to
x
−
1
/
2
{\displaystyle x^{-{1}/{2}}}
(see also their asymptotic forms below), although their roots are not generally periodic, except asymptotically for large x. (The series indicates that −J1(x) is the derivative of J0(x), much like −sin x is the derivative of cos x; more generally, the derivative of Jn(x) can be expressed in terms of Jn ± 1(x) by the identities below.)
For non-integer α, the functions Jα(x) and J−α(x) are linearly independent, and are therefore the two solutions of the differential equation. On the other hand, for integer order n, the following relationship is valid (the gamma function has simple poles at each of the non-positive integers):
J
−
n
(
x
)
=
(
−
1
)
n
J
n
(
x
)
.
{\displaystyle J_{-n}(x)=(-1)^{n}J_{n}(x).}
This means that the two solutions are no longer linearly independent. In this case, the second linearly independent solution is then found to be the Bessel function of the second kind, as discussed below.
Another definition of the Bessel function, for integer values of n, is possible using an integral representation:
This was the approach that Bessel used, and from this definition he derived several properties of the function. The definition may be extended to non-integer orders by one of Schläfli's integrals, for Re(x) > 0:
Yα(x) is necessary as the second linearly independent solution of the Bessel's equation when α is an integer. But Yα(x) has more meaning than that. It can be considered as a "natural" partner of Jα(x). See also the subsection on Hankel functions below.
When α is an integer, moreover, as was similarly the case for the functions of the first kind, the following relationship is valid:
Y
−
n
(
x
)
=
(
−
1
)
n
Y
n
(
x
)
.
{\displaystyle Y_{-n}(x)=(-1)^{n}Y_{n}(x).}
Both Jα(x) and Yα(x) are holomorphic functions of x on the complex plane cut along the negative real axis. When α is an integer, the Bessel functions J are entire functions of x. If x is held fixed at a non-zero value, then the Bessel functions are entire functions of α.
The Bessel functions of the second kind, when α is an integer, are an example of the second kind of solution in Fuchs's theorem.
where i is the imaginary unit. These linear combinations are also known as Bessel functions of the third kind; they are two linearly independent solutions of Bessel's differential equation. They are named after Hermann Hankel.
These forms of linear combination satisfy numerous simple-looking properties, like asymptotic formulae or integral representations. Here, "simple" means an appearance of a factor of the form ei f(x). For real
x
>
0
{\displaystyle x>0}
where
J
α
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{\alpha }(x)}
,
Y
α
(
x
)
{\displaystyle Y_{\alpha }(x)}
are real-valued, the Bessel functions of the first and second kind are the real and imaginary parts, respectively, of the first Hankel function and the real and negative imaginary parts of the second Hankel function. Thus, the above formulae are analogs of Euler's formula, substituting H(1)α(x), H(2)α(x) for
e
±
i
x
{\displaystyle e^{\pm ix}}
and
J
α
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{\alpha }(x)}
,
Y
α
(
x
)
{\displaystyle Y_{\alpha }(x)}
for
cos
(
x
)
{\displaystyle \cos(x)}
,
sin
(
x
)
{\displaystyle \sin(x)}
, as explicitly shown in the asymptotic expansion.
The Hankel functions are used to express outward- and inward-propagating cylindrical-wave solutions of the cylindrical wave equation, respectively (or vice versa, depending on the sign convention for the frequency).
Using the previous relationships, they can be expressed as
where the integration limits indicate integration along a contour that can be chosen as follows: from −∞ to 0 along the negative real axis, from 0 to ±πi along the imaginary axis, and from ±πi to +∞ ± πi along a contour parallel to the real axis.
when α is not an integer. When α is an integer, then the limit is used. These are chosen to be real-valued for real and positive arguments x. The series expansion for Iα(x) is thus similar to that for Jα(x), but without the alternating (−1)m factor.
Unlike the ordinary Bessel functions, which are oscillating as functions of a real argument, Iα and Kα are exponentially growing and decaying functions respectively. Like the ordinary Bessel function Jα, the function Iα goes to zero at x = 0 for α > 0 and is finite at x = 0 for α = 0. Analogously, Kα diverges at x = 0 with the singularity being of logarithmic type for K0, and 1/2Γ(|α|)(2/x)|α| otherwise.
Two integral formulas for the modified Bessel functions are (for Re(x) > 0):
It can be proven by showing equality to the above integral definition for K0. This is done by integrating a closed curve in the first quadrant of the complex plane.
Modified Bessel functions of the second kind may be represented with Bassett's integral
There are simple closed-form expressions for the Bessel functions of half-integer order in terms of the standard trigonometric functions, and therefore for the spherical Bessel functions. In particular, for non-negative integers n:
and h(2)n is the complex-conjugate of this (for real x). It follows, for example, that j0(x) = sin x/x and y0(x) = −cos x/x, and so on.
The spherical Hankel functions appear in problems involving spherical wave propagation, for example in the multipole expansion of the electromagnetic field.
For example, this kind of differential equation appears in quantum mechanics while solving the radial component of the Schrödinger equation with hypothetical cylindrical infinite potential barrier. This differential equation, and the Riccati–Bessel solutions, also arises in the problem of scattering of electromagnetic waves by a sphere, known as Mie scattering after the first published solution by Mie (1908). See e.g., Du (2004) for recent developments and references.
Following Debye (1909), the notation ψn, χn is sometimes used instead of Sn, Cn.
where γ is the Euler–Mascheroni constant (0.5772...). For the second case (where
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is a positive integer) one term will dominate unless
α
{\displaystyle \alpha }
is imaginary.
For large real arguments z ≫ |α2 − 1/4|, one cannot write a true asymptotic form for Bessel functions of the first and second kind (unless α is half-integer) because they have zeros all the way out to infinity, which would have to be matched exactly by any asymptotic expansion. However, for a given value of arg z one can write an equation containing a term of order |z|−1:
These can be extended to other values of arg z using equations relating H(1)α(zeimπ) and H(2)α(zeimπ) to H(1)α(z) and H(2)α(z).
It is interesting that although the Bessel function of the first kind is the average of the two Hankel functions, Jα(z) is not asymptotic to the average of these two asymptotic forms when z is negative (because one or the other will not be correct there, depending on the arg z used). But the asymptotic forms for the Hankel functions permit us to write asymptotic forms for the Bessel functions of first and second kinds for complex (non-real) z so long as |z| goes to infinity at a constant phase angle arg z (using the square root having positive real part):
This formula is useful especially when working with Fourier transforms.
Because Bessel's equation becomes Hermitian (self-adjoint) if it is divided by x, the solutions must satisfy an orthogonality relationship for appropriate boundary conditions. In particular, it follows that:
where α > −1, δm,n is the Kronecker delta, and uα,m is the mth zero of Jα(x). This orthogonality relation can then be used to extract the coefficients in the Fourier–Bessel series, where a function is expanded in the basis of the functions Jα(x uα,m) for fixed α and varying m.
An analogous relationship for the spherical Bessel functions follows immediately:
(where rect is the rectangle function) then the Hankel transform of it (of any given order α > −1/2), gε(k), approaches Jα(k) as ε approaches zero, for any given k. Conversely, the Hankel transform (of the same order) of gε(k) is fε(x):
which is zero everywhere except near 1. As ε approaches zero, the right-hand side approaches δ(x − 1), where δ is the Dirac delta function. This admits the limit (in the distributional sense):
where Aα and Bα are any two solutions of Bessel's equation, and Cα is a constant independent of x (which depends on α and on the particular Bessel functions considered). In particular,
where Z denotes J, Y, H(1), or H(2). These two identities are often combined, e.g. added or subtracted, to yield various other relations. In this way, for example, one can compute Bessel functions of higher orders (or higher derivatives) given the values at lower orders (or lower derivatives). In particular, it follows that
where λ and ν may be taken as arbitrary complex numbers. For |λ2 − 1| < 1, the above expression also holds if J is replaced by Y. The analogous identities for modified Bessel functions and |λ2 − 1| < 1 are
. Euler also worked out the solutions of vibrating 2D membranes in cylindrical coordinates in 1780. In order to solve his differential equation he introduced a power series associated to
J
n
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{n}(x)}
, for integer n.
During the end of the 18th century Lagrange, Pierre-Simon Laplace and Marc-Antoine Parseval also found equivalents to the Bessel functions. In particular, Parseval found an integral representation of
J
0
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{0}(x)}
using cosine.
At the beginning of the 1800s, Joseph Fourier used
J
0
(
x
)
{\displaystyle J_{0}(x)}
to solve the heat equation in a problem with cylindrical symmetry. Fourier won a prize of the French Academy of Sciences for this work in 1811. But most of the details of his work, including the use of a Fourier series, remained unpublished until 1822. Poisson, in rivalry with Fourier, extended Fourier's work in 1823, introducing new properties of Bessel functions, including Bessel functions of half-integer order (now known as spherical Bessel functions).
