MATH115

ADVANCED ENGINEERING
MATHEMATICS
 MATH115
LEGENDRE EQUATION
 At the end of the lecture, you should be
able to:
 Solve Legendre differential equation
using Power series method.
 Find Legendre polynomials.
 One of the most important ODEs in
Physics is Legendre’s equation given by

1  x y  2 xy  nn  1 y  0

2

 The parameter n is a given real number.

 Legendre’s equation arises in numerous
problems, particularly in boundary value
problems for spheres.
 Any solution of the equation is called a
Legendre function.
 Legendre equation has power series
solutions of the form. y   a x m
 m
m 0

 We substitute the series and its

derivative to the ODE. This gives
 The recursive equation is given by

 We have
 Thus, the solution to the Legendre’s
equation is

 where
 Example:
 Show that with n=0

 and
 Example:
 Show that with n=1

 and
 SUMMARY:
 If n is even y1 reduces to a polynomial of
degree n.
 If n is odd, the same is true for y2.
 These polynomials, multiplied by some
constants, are called Legendre
polynomials.
 ALTERNATIVELY:
 We can start with an as our first
constant.
 The standard choice of constant is done
as follows:

 Substitute it to
 We have the other constants:
 The resulting solution of Legendre’s
differential equation is called the
Legendre polynomial of degree n and is
given by

 where
n n1
M  or
2 2

 whichever is an integer.
 The first few of these functions

 In figure:
 Example:
 Verify that the polynomials satisfy
Legendre’s equations
 ALTERNATIVELY::