EULER EQUATIONS
Differential equations of the form:
a n x n y ( n ) + a n 1 x n 1 y ( n 1) + ...a 2 x 2 y + a1 xy + a 0 y = f ( x ) (1)
represent a special case of Eulers equation.
Equations of this sort can always be transformed into a linear differential equation with
constant coefficients by making the substitution:
x = e z or z = ln x (2)
Lets consider the specific differential equation:
x 2 y + 2 xy l (l + 1) y = 0
(3)
When we make the substitution shown in (2) we get:
dy dy dz
dy
(4)
=
= e z
dx dz dx
dz
the last step occurring because dx/dz = ez, so dz/dx = e-z.
The second derivative becomes:
d 2 y d dy d z dy d z dy dz z dy z d 2 y z
= = e
= e + e 2 e =
=
e
dz dz
dz dx
dx 2 dx dx dx
dz
dz
(5)
d y
dy
e 2 z 2 e 2 z
dz
dz
2
Remembering that x2 = e2z and x = ez, we can use equations (4) and (5) to rewrite (3) as:
d 2 y dy
+
l (l + 1) y = 0
dz 2 dz
(6)
which is a simple second order homogeneous constant coefficient ordinary differential
equation.
The characteristic equation for (6) can be written as:
r 2 + r l (l + 1) = 0 (7)
Which can be factored as:
( r l )( r + l + 1) = 0 (8)
This gives a solution to (6) of:
y = c1e lz + c 2 e ( l +1) z
(9)
Since x = ez, eq. (9) becomes:
y = c1 x l + c 2 x ( l +1)
(10)