In mathematics, a Lamé function, or ellipsoidal harmonic function, is a solution of Lamé's equation, a second-order ordinary differential equation.
It was introduced in the paper (Gabriel Lamé 1837).
Lamé's equation appears in the method of separation of variables applied to the Laplace equation in elliptic coordinates.
In some special cases solutions can be expressed in terms of polynomials called Lamé polynomials.
Lamé's equation is where A and B are constants, and
is the Weierstrass elliptic function.
is the elliptic sine function, and
the elliptic modulus, in which case the solutions extend to meromorphic functions defined on the whole complex plane.
For other values of B the solutions have branch points.
[citation needed] By changing the independent variable to
, Lamé's equation can also be rewritten in algebraic form as which after a change of variable becomes a special case of Heun's equation.
A more general form of Lamé's equation is the ellipsoidal equation or ellipsoidal wave equation which can be written (observe we now write
the equation reduces to the Mathieu equation The Weierstrassian form of Lamé's equation is quite unsuitable for calculation (as Arscott also remarks, p. 191).
The algebraic and trigonometric forms are also cumbersome to use.
Lamé equations arise in quantum mechanics as equations of small fluctuations about classical solutions—called periodic instantons, bounces or bubbles—of Schrödinger equations for various periodic and anharmonic potentials.
[1][2] Asymptotic expansions of periodic ellipsoidal wave functions, and therewith also of Lamé functions, for large values of
[3][4][5] The asymptotic expansion obtained by him for the eigenvalues
approximately an odd integer (and to be determined more precisely by boundary conditions – see below), (another (fifth) term not given here has been calculated by Müller, the first three terms have also been obtained by Ince[6]).
Observe terms are alternately even and odd in
(as in the corresponding calculations for Mathieu functions, and oblate spheroidal wave functions and prolate spheroidal wave functions).
is the quarter period given by a complete elliptic integral) as well as (the prime meaning derivative) defining respectively the ellipsoidal wave functions of periods
one obtains Here the upper sign refers to the solutions
one obtains In the limit of the Mathieu equation (to which the Lamé equation can be reduced) these expressions reduce to the corresponding expressions of the Mathieu case (as shown by Müller).