User:Tohline/Appendix/Ramblings/ConcentricEllipsodalCoordinates

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Concentric Ellipsoidal (T6) Coordinates

Whitworth's (1981) Isothermal Free-Energy Surface
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Background

Building on our general introduction to Direction Cosines in the context of orthogonal curvilinear coordinate systems, and on our previous development of T3 (concentric oblate-spheroidal) and T5 (concentric elliptic) coordinate systems, here we explore the creation of a concentric ellipsoidal (T6) coordinate system. This is motivated by our desire to construct a fully analytically prescribable model of a nonuniform-density ellipsoidal configuration that is an analog to Riemann S-Type ellipsoids.

Orthogonal Coordinates

We start by defining a "radial" coordinate whose values identify various concentric ellipsoidal shells,

<math>~\lambda_1</math>

<math>~\equiv</math>

<math>~(x^2 + q^2 y^2 + p^2 z^2)^{1 / 2} \, .</math>

When <math>~\lambda_1 = a</math>, we obtain the standard definition of an ellipsoidal surface, it being understood that, <math>~q^2 = a^2/b^2</math> and <math>~p^2 = a^2/c^2</math>. (We will assume that <math>~a > b > c</math>, that is, <math>~p^2 > q^2 > 1</math>.)

See Also

Whitworth's (1981) Isothermal Free-Energy Surface

© 2014 - 2021 by Joel E. Tohline
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Recommended citation:   Tohline, Joel E. (2021), The Structure, Stability, & Dynamics of Self-Gravitating Fluids, a (MediaWiki-based) Vistrails.org publication, https://www.vistrails.org/index.php/User:Tohline/citation