In mathematics, Gegenbauer polynomials or ultraspherical polynomials C^(α)
_n(x) are orthogonal polynomials on the interval [−1,1] with respect to the weight function (1 − x²)^α–1/2. They generalize Legendre polynomials and Chebyshev polynomials, and are special cases of Jacobi polynomials. They are named after Leopold Gegenbauer.

Characterizations

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  Plot of the Gegenbauer polynomial C n^(m)(x) with n=10 and m=1 in the complex plane from -2-2i to 2+2i with colors created with Mathematica 13.1 function ComplexPlot3D
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  Gegenbauer polynomials with α=1
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  Gegenbauer polynomials with α=2
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  Gegenbauer polynomials with α=3
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  An animation showing the polynomials on the xα-plane for the first 4 values of n.

A variety of characterizations of the Gegenbauer polynomials are available.

• The polynomials can be defined in terms of their generating function (Stein & Weiss 1971, §IV.2):

${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{(1-2xt+t^{2})^{\alpha ))}=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)t^{n}\qquad (0\leq |x|<1,|t|\leq 1,\alpha >0)}$

• The polynomials satisfy the recurrence relation (Suetin 2001):

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}C_{0}^{(\alpha )}(x)&=1\\C_{1}^{(\alpha )}(x)&=2\alpha x\\(n+1)C_{n+1}^{(\alpha )}(x)&=2(n+\alpha )xC_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)-(n+2\alpha -1)C_{n-1}^{(\alpha )}(x).\end{aligned))}$

• Gegenbauer polynomials are particular solutions of the Gegenbauer differential equation (Suetin 2001):

${\displaystyle (1-x^{2})y''-(2\alpha +1)xy'+n(n+2\alpha )y=0.\,}$

When α = 1/2, the equation reduces to the Legendre equation, and the Gegenbauer polynomials reduce to the Legendre polynomials.

When α = 1, the equation reduces to the Chebyshev differential equation, and the Gegenbauer polynomials reduce to the Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind.^[1]

• They are given as Gaussian hypergeometric series in certain cases where the series is in fact finite:

${\displaystyle C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(z)={\frac {(2\alpha )_{n)){n!))\,_{2}F_{1}\left(-n,2\alpha +n;\alpha +{\frac {1}{2));{\frac {1-z}{2))\right).}$

(Abramowitz & Stegun p. 561). Here (2α)_n is the rising factorial. Explicitly,

${\displaystyle C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(z)=\sum _{k=0}^{\lfloor n/2\rfloor }(-1)^{k}{\frac {\Gamma (n-k+\alpha )}{\Gamma (\alpha )k!(n-2k)!))(2z)^{n-2k}.}$

From this it is also easy to obtain the value at unit argument:

${\displaystyle C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(1)={\frac {\Gamma (2\alpha +n)}{\Gamma (2\alpha )n!)).}$

• They are special cases of the Jacobi polynomials (Suetin 2001):

${\displaystyle C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)={\frac {(2\alpha )_{n)){(\alpha +{\frac {1}{2)))_{n))}P_{n}^{(\alpha -1/2,\alpha -1/2)}(x).}$

in which ${\displaystyle (\theta )_{n))$ represents the rising factorial of ${\displaystyle \theta }$.

One therefore also has the Rodrigues formula

${\displaystyle C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)={\frac {(-1)^{n)){2^{n}n!)){\frac {\Gamma (\alpha +{\frac {1}{2)))\Gamma (n+2\alpha )}{\Gamma (2\alpha )\Gamma (\alpha +n+{\frac {1}{2)))))(1-x^{2})^{-\alpha +1/2}{\frac {d^{n)){dx^{n))}\left[(1-x^{2})^{n+\alpha -1/2}\right].}$

Orthogonality and normalization

For a fixed α > -1/2, the polynomials are orthogonal on [−1, 1] with respect to the weighting function (Abramowitz & Stegun p. 774)

${\displaystyle w(z)=\left(1-z^{2}\right)^{\alpha -{\frac {1}{2))}.}$

To wit, for n ≠ m,

${\displaystyle \int _{-1}^{1}C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)C_{m}^{(\alpha )}(x)(1-x^{2})^{\alpha -{\frac {1}{2))}\,dx=0.}$

They are normalized by

${\displaystyle \int _{-1}^{1}\left[C_{n}^{(\alpha )}(x)\right]^{2}(1-x^{2})^{\alpha -{\frac {1}{2))}\,dx={\frac {\pi 2^{1-2\alpha }\Gamma (n+2\alpha )}{n!(n+\alpha )[\Gamma (\alpha )]^{2))}.}$

Applications

The Gegenbauer polynomials appear naturally as extensions of Legendre polynomials in the context of potential theory and harmonic analysis. The Newtonian potential in Rⁿ has the expansion, valid with α = (n − 2)/2,

${\displaystyle {\frac {1}{|\mathbf {x} -\mathbf {y} |^{n-2))}=\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {|\mathbf {x} |^{k)){|\mathbf {y} |^{k+n-2))}C_{k}^{(\alpha )}({\frac {\mathbf {x} \cdot \mathbf {y} }{|\mathbf {x} ||\mathbf {y} |))).}$

When n = 3, this gives the Legendre polynomial expansion of the gravitational potential. Similar expressions are available for the expansion of the Poisson kernel in a ball (Stein & Weiss 1971).

It follows that the quantities ${\displaystyle C_{k}^{((n-2)/2)}(\mathbf {x} \cdot \mathbf {y} )}$ are spherical harmonics, when regarded as a function of x only. They are, in fact, exactly the zonal spherical harmonics, up to a normalizing constant.

Gegenbauer polynomials also appear in the theory of Positive-definite functions.

The Askey–Gasper inequality reads

${\displaystyle \sum _{j=0}^{n}{\frac {C_{j}^{\alpha }(x)}{2\alpha +j-1 \choose j))\geq 0\qquad (x\geq -1,\,\alpha \geq 1/4).}$

In spectral methods for solving differential equations, if a function is expanded in the basis of Chebyshev polynomials and its derivative is represented in a Gegenbauer/ultraspherical basis, then the derivative operator becomes a diagonal matrix, leading to fast banded matrix methods for large problems.^[2]