ON THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS OF MACLAURIN SPHEROID MODELS OF ROTATING FLUID PLANETS

Journal Article · Sun Feb 10 00:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/764/1/67· OSTI ID:22167803

Kong, Dali; Zhang, Keke ^[1]; Schubert, Gerald ^[2]

---

1. Center for Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics and Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF (United Kingdom)
2. Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

Hubbard recently derived an important iterative equation for calculating the gravitational coefficients of a Maclaurin spheroid that does not require an expansion in a small distortion parameter. We show that this iterative equation, which is based on an incomplete solution of the Poisson equation, diverges when the distortion parameter is not sufficiently small. We derive a new iterative equation that is based on a complete solution of the Poisson equation and, hence, always converges when calculating the gravitational coefficients of a Maclaurin spheroid.

• OSTI ID: 22167803
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 764, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
FLUIDS
GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS
HYDRODYNAMICS
ITERATIVE METHODS
PLANETS
POISSON EQUATION
SATELLITES
SPHEROIDS