van Buren, Arnie L.; Boisvert, Jeffrey E. Improved calculation of prolate spheroidal radial functions of the second kind and their first derivatives. (English) Zbl 1066.65029 Q. Appl. Math. 62, No. 3, 493-507 (2004). Summary: Alternative expressions for calculating the prolate spheroidal radial functions of the second kind \(R^{(2)}_{ml}(c,\xi)\) and their first derivatives with respect to \(\xi\) are shown to provide accurate values over wide parameter ranges where the traditional expressions fail to do so. The first alternative expression is obtained from the expansion of the product of \(R^{(2)}_{ml}(c,\xi)\) and the prolate spheroidal angular function of the first kind \(S^{(1)}_{ml}(c,\eta)\) in a series of products of the corresponding spherical functions. A similar expression for the radial functions of the first kind was shown previously to provide accurate values for the prolate spheroidal radial functions of the first kind and their first derivatives over all parameter ranges. The second alternative expression for \(R^{(2)}_{ml}(c,\xi)\) involves an integral of the product of \(S^{(1)}_{ml}(c,\eta)\) and a spherical Neumann function kernel. It provides accurate values when \(\xi\) is near unity and \(l-m\) is not too large, even when \(c\) becomes large and traditional expressions fail. The improvement in accuracy using the alternative expressions is quantified and discussed. Cited in 2 Documents MSC: 65D20 Computation of special functions and constants, construction of tables 33E10 Lamé, Mathieu, and spheroidal wave functions 33F05 Numerical approximation and evaluation of special functions Keywords:Helmholtz wave equation; prolate spheroidal radial functions of the second kind; prolate spheroidal angular function of the first kind PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{A. L. van Buren} and \textit{J. E. Boisvert}, Q. Appl. Math. 62, No. 3, 493--507 (2004; Zbl 1066.65029) Full Text: DOI Digital Library of Mathematical Functions: §30.16(iii) Radial Spheroidal Wave Functions ‣ §30.16 Methods of Computation ‣ Computation ‣ Chapter 30 Spheroidal Wave Functions §30.16(iii) Radial Spheroidal Wave Functions ‣ §30.16 Methods of Computation ‣ Computation ‣ Chapter 30 Spheroidal Wave Functions