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Mathematical Modeling of Earth's Magnetic Field

The document discusses mathematical modeling of Earth's magnetic field using spherical harmonics. It defines the magnetic field B as the negative gradient of a scalar potential function V, which must satisfy Laplace's equation. The solution to Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates leads to solid spherical harmonics with either radial dependence of 1/r^n+1 or r^n, which are used to represent the magnetic potential and field outside or inside a reference sphere, usually chosen as Earth's surface. The magnetic field potential and its components are expressed as sums involving the spherical harmonics and Gaussian coefficients.

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Diego Peña
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113 views2 pages

Mathematical Modeling of Earth's Magnetic Field

The document discusses mathematical modeling of Earth's magnetic field using spherical harmonics. It defines the magnetic field B as the negative gradient of a scalar potential function V, which must satisfy Laplace's equation. The solution to Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates leads to solid spherical harmonics with either radial dependence of 1/r^n+1 or r^n, which are used to represent the magnetic potential and field outside or inside a reference sphere, usually chosen as Earth's surface. The magnetic field potential and its components are expressed as sums involving the spherical harmonics and Gaussian coefficients.

Uploaded by

Diego Peña
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Mathematical Modeling of Earths Magnetic Field

Modeling of the magnetic eld


According to physics, the magnetic eld, B, is dened as the negative gradient of the scalar
potential function V , such that
B = V (1)
For the magnetic eld B to satisfy B = 0, the potential V to be used in the analysis of mag-
netic eld components must satisfy Laplaces equation, for which reason it is said to be harmonic.
Solution of Laplaces equation in spherical polars leads to solid spherical harmonics with radial
dependence 1/r
n+1
,
1
r
n+1
P
m
n
(cos ) cos m,
1
r
n+1
P
m
n
(cos ) sin m, (2)
and with radial dependence r
n
,
r
n
P
m
n
(cos ) cos m, r
n
P
m
n
(cos ) sin m, (3)
Series of solid spherical harmonics (2) are appropriate in regions that exclude the origin, r = 0,
and are used to represent the magnetic eld potential outside a reference sphere, often chosen
to be the sphere of minimum radius enclosing the sources. Therefore, they are associated with
magnetic elds of internal origin. Similarly, series of solid spherical harmonics (3) are appropriate
inside a reference sphere and are associated with external magnetic elds whose origin is outside
the reference sphere.
Relative to a reference sphere of radius a, the expression used for the potential of magnetic
eld of internal origin is
V (r, , ) = a
N

n=1

a
r

n+1
n

m=0
(g
m
n
cos m + h
m
n
sin m) P
m
n
(cos ) (4)
where r, , and are the geocentric coordinates (r is the radius in kilometers, is the co-latitude
( = 90 latitude), and is the longitude. The initial factor a in (4) is chosen so that the Gaussian
coecients g
m
n
and h
m
n
will have units of magnetic eld, teslas. In geomagnetism, the relevant value
of a is the mean radius of the Earth, 6371 km. The associated Legendre functions P
m
n
(cos ) cos m
and r
n
P
m
n
(cos ) sin m are Schmidt quasi-normalized functions. The geomagnetic eld of internal
origin will be denoted by B(r, , ) and
B(r, , ) = V (r, , )
B(r, , ) =
V
r
r
1
r
V


1
r sin
V

(5)
in which r,

,

are unit vectors in spherical polars, being in the direction of gradients of
coordinates, namely r, , .
The corresponding components of the magnetic eld are:
B
r
=
V
r
=
N

n=1

a
r

n+2
(n + 1)
n

m=0
(g
m
n
cos m + h
m
n
sin m) P
m
n
(cos ) (6)
1
B

=
1
r
V

=
N

n=1

a
r

n+2
n

m=0
(g
m
n
cos m + h
m
n
sinm)
P
m
n
(cos )

(7)
B

=
1
r sin
V

=
1
sin
N

n=1

a
r

n+2
n

m=0
m(g
m
n
sinm + h
m
n
cos m) P
m
n
(cos ) (8)
References
Winch, D. E., Ivers, D. J., Turner, J. P. R. and Stening, R. J. (2005), Geomagnetism and Schmidt
quasi-normalization. Geophysical Journal International, 160: 487504. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-
246X.2004.02472.x
2

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