## Solving Bessel's Equation numerically

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Reference Ch 5.5 Kreysig, Advanced Engineering Mathematics, 9th ed.

Bessel's equation $$x^2 y'' + x y' + (x^2 - \nu^2)y=0$$ comes up often in engineering problems such as heat transfer. The solutions to this equation are the Bessel functions. To solve this equation numerically, we must convert it to a system of first order ODEs. This can be done by letting $$z = y'$$ and $$z' = y''$$ and performing the change of variables:

$$y' = z$$

$$z' = \frac{1}{x^2}(-x z - (x^2 - \nu^2) y$$

if we take the case where $$\nu = 0$$, the solution is known to be the Bessel function $$J_0(x)$$, which is represented in Matlab as besselj(0,x). The initial conditions for this problem are: $$y(0) = 1$$ and $$y'(0)=0$$.

There is a problem with our system of ODEs at x=0. Because of the $$1/x^2$$ term, the ODEs are not defined at x=0. If we start very close to zero instead, we avoid the problem.

import numpy as np
from scipy.integrate import odeint
from scipy.special import jn # bessel function
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

def fbessel(Y, x):
nu = 0.0
y = Y[0]
z = Y[1]

dydx = z
dzdx = 1.0 / x**2 * (-x * z - (x**2 - nu**2) * y)
return [dydx, dzdx]

x0 = 1e-15
y0 = 1
z0 = 0
Y0 = [y0, z0]

xspan = np.linspace(1e-15, 10)
sol = odeint(fbessel, Y0, xspan)

plt.plot(xspan, sol[:,0], label='numerical soln')
plt.plot(xspan, jn(0, xspan), 'r--', label='Bessel')
plt.legend()
plt.savefig('images/bessel.png')


You can see the numerical and analytical solutions overlap, indicating they are at least visually the same.

Copyright (C) 2013 by John Kitchin. See the License for information about copying.

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