Legendre rational functions

In mathematics the Legendre rational functions are a sequence of orthogonal functions on [0, ∞). They are obtained by composing the Cayley transform with Legendre polynomials.

A rational Legendre function of degree n is defined as:

R_{n}(x)={\frac {\sqrt {2}}{x+1}}\,P_{n}\left({\frac {x-1}{x+1}}\right)

where $P_{n}(x)$ is a Legendre polynomial. These functions are eigenfunctions of the singular Sturm-Liouville problem:

(x+1)\partial _{x}(x\partial _{x}((x+1)v(x)))+\lambda v(x)=0

with eigenvalues

\lambda _{n}=n(n+1)\,

Properties

Many properties can be derived from the properties of the Legendre polynomials of the first kind. Other properties are unique to the functions themselves.

Recursion

R_{n+1}(x)={\frac {2n+1}{n+1}}\,{\frac {x-1}{x+1}}\,R_{n}(x)-{\frac {n}{n+1}}\,R_{n-1}(x)\quad \mathrm {for\,n\geq 1}

and

2(2n+1)R_{n}(x)=(x+1)^{2}(\partial _{x}R_{n+1}(x)-\partial _{x}R_{n-1}(x))+(x+1)(R_{n+1}(x)-R_{n-1}(x))

Limiting behavior

Plot of the seventh order (*n=7*) Legendre rational function multiplied by *1+x* for x between 0.01 and 100. Note that there are n zeroes arranged symmetrically about *x=1* and if x₀ is a zero, then *1/x*₀ is a zero as well. These properties hold for all orders.

It can be shown that

\lim _{x\rightarrow \infty }(x+1)R_{n}(x)={\sqrt {2}}

and

\lim _{x\rightarrow \infty }x\partial _{x}((x+1)R_{n}(x))=0

Orthogonality

\int _{0}^{\infty }R_{m}(x)\,R_{n}(x)\,dx={\frac {2}{2n+1}}\delta _{nm}

where $\delta _{nm}$ is the Kronecker delta function.

Particular values

R_{0}(x)=1\,

R_{1}(x)={\frac {x-1}{x+1}}\,

R_{2}(x)={\frac {x^{2}-4x+1}{(x+1)^{2}}}\,

R_{3}(x)={\frac {x^{3}-9x^{2}+9x-1}{(x+1)^{3}}}\,

R_{4}(x)={\frac {x^{4}-16x^{3}+36x^{2}-16x+1}{(x+1)^{4}}}\,

References

Zhong-Qing, Wang; Ben-Yu, Guo (2005). "A mixed spectral method for incompressible viscous fluid flow in an infinite strip". Mat. Apl. Comput. 24 (3). doi:10.1590/S0101-82052005000300002.