The main form of the representation of a gravitational potential V for a celestial body T in outer space is the Laplace series in solid spherical harmonics (R/ r) n + 1Yn(θ, λ) with R being the radius of the enveloping T sphere. The surface harmonic Yn satisfies the inequality(Formula presented.)The angular brackets mark the maximum of a function’s modulus over a unit sphere. For bodies with an irregular structure σ= 5 / 2 , and this value cannot be increased generally. However, a class of irregular bodies (smooth bodies with peaked mountains) has been found recently in which σ= 3. In this paper, we will prove the exactness of this estimate, showing that a body belonging to the above class does exist and (Formula presented.)for it.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)75-94
Number of pages20
JournalCelestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy
Volume128
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2017

    Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

    Research areas

  • Exact estimate of a general term of a series, Gravitational potential, Irregular bodies, Laplace series

ID: 15489528