An analytic study of exponential-type potentials
Mira-Cristiana ANISIU, Iharka SZÜCS-CSILLIK
mira2010@yahoo.com, iharka@gmail.com
Introduction
The exponential law appears nowadays in lots
of models of the real world, and it has accom-
panied the human knowledge for a very long
time. Curtis (1978) presents the early his-
tory of this law, starting with the ancient for-
mulations by means of geometric progressions,
recorded on Sumerian cuneiform tablets from
around 2000 BC, and the Egyptian Rhind pa-
pyrus from around 1550 BC.
In his Almagest from 138 AD, Ptolemy cat-
aloged the brightness of visible stars according
to six classes, the first magnitude including 15
of the brightest stars in the sky, and the sixth
magnitude containing the faintest visible to the
naked eye. The other stars were distributed into
the intervening four magnitudes. Later on, in
1830, Sir John Herschel noted that a first mag-
nitude star is in fact about 100 times brighter
than one of sixth magnitude. It became obvious
that the magnitude scale was in fact a geometric
progression, with the average ratio between 2.4
and 2.5. Various phenomena, as Newton’s law
of cooling of heated objects (1701), Bouguer’s
law of absorption of the light through translu-
cent materials (1729), reconsidered by Lambert
(1760), Malthus theory of population increasing
(1798) are examples of exponential processes.
Afterwards, exponentials were used, in com-
bination with some other functions, to model
more complex and more realistic phenomena, as
the Verhulst model for the growth of a biolog-
ical population (1838), the damped oscillations
in electrical circuits studied by Lord Kelvin -
William Thompson (1853).
The idea of modifying the original 1/r Newto-
nian potential starts with Newton himself. In his
Principia he has already proposed a potential
of the form A/r + B/r2 and studied the relative
orbit in this case too. Potentials of this type
have been physically justified later by Maneff
(1924). There exist also other kind of correc-
tions, as in fractional potentials (Abd El-Salam
et al. (2014), Anisiu and Szücs-Csillik (2016)),
logarithmic (Ragos et al. (2013)), or polyno-
mial (Anisiu (2007)). Exponential-type poten-
tials appeared as examples in the programmed
motion related to the inverse problem of Dynam-
ics (Anisiu and Bozis (2000)).
Conclusions
The main properties of the Newtonian po-
tential are preserved by the corrected potentials
considered here. It is worth noting that we have
at our disposal some parameters which can be
used to adjust the potential when we have fur-
ther information on the motion. The figures il-
lustrate the possible situations which have been
proved analytically. We notice that Neumann’s
and Seeliger’s potentials graphs are situated un-
der the graph of the Newtonian one, while the
graphs of Wλ and Zλ are situated above.
Zangeneh et. al. (2019) considered Neu-
mann’s potential and Wλ , and the correspond-
ing Friedmann equations, in order to cover the
results of the general relativity in the Newtonian
framework. They aimed to study the cosmolog-
ical consequences of these potentials. It would
be interesting to consider this topic for the po-
tential Zλ .
Laplace, Seeliger and Neumann modifications
Seeliger (1895) agreed that Newton’s law is sustained by the astronomical observations in our plan-
etary system, but he doubted that it still holds for "immeasurably great distances". He computed
the gravitational effects of the masses of the universe at a point and concluded that irresolvable
contradictions appeared, unless an attenuation factor was added in the expression of the Newton’s
inverse square law. Seeliger proposed the addition of the factor exp(−λr), for λ a positive parameter,
to obtain the gravitational force between two bodies of mass m and m0 at distance r
0 exp(−λr)
F = Gmm , (1)
r2
where G is the gravitational constant. The factor exp(−λr) was chosen as a possible one, similar to
that from Bouguer’s law of absorption of the light, and Seeliger admitted that further conditions on
the cosmological problem may lead to better modifications. The expression (1) for the gravitational
force was mentioned by Laplace (1825), but Seeliger was the first who sustained firmly that Newton’s
law needed to be modified.
Neumann (1896) proposed other modification of the Newton’s law, starting from problems in elec-
trostatics. He considered the potential
A exp(−λr)
ϕ=− , (2)
r
with λ a positive small parameter. In this case, the gravitational force between two bodies of mass
m and m0 at distance r becomes
01 + λr
F = Gmm 2
exp(−λr). (3)
r
We mention that a potential of the form (2) was proposed by van der Waals (a Nobel Prize recipient)
in 1893 to represent intermolecular forces. Yukawa (1935) proposed a potential of the same form to
describe the interaction between the elementary particles in the nucleus (see Anisiu (2015)).
Exponential-type potentials
We study exponentially corrected potentials and their relation with the Newtonian potential. We
denote the potential corresponding to Neumann by Vλ , and to Seeliger’s force as Uλ :
Z r
exp(−λr) exp(−λu)
Vλ (r) = , λ > 0, Uλ (r) = − 2
du. (4)
r u
Potentials of the form Vλ are used in astrophysics as corrections for the Newtonian potential to
explain recently observed phenomena that occur at various scales, from solar system to cosmological
distances, which have not yet found an explanation in terms of conventional physics. Further, we
study the exponentially corrected potential, which we expect to preserve the shape of the Newtonian
potential (where λ, a are positive parameters):
1 exp(−λr) 1 a
Wλ (r) = + a , Zλ (r) = + , (5)
r r r exp (λr)
Figures 1. Vλ , for λ = 1, 2, 3; 2. Uλ , λ = 1, 2, 3; 3. Wλ , for a = 1 and λ = 1, 2, 3; 4. Zλ ,
for a = 1 and λ = 1, 2, 3. The black curve represents the Newtonian potential and the blue, red and
green ones correspond to λ = 1, 2, 3.
Selected references
[1] Abd El-Salam, F. A. et al.: Astrophys. Space Sci. 350, 507-515 (2014)
[2] Anisiu, M.-C.: AIP Conference Proceedings 895. 308-312 (2007)
[3] Anisiu, M.-C.: Did. Math. 33, 1-9 (2015)
[4] Anisiu, M.-C., Bozis, G.: Inverse Problems 16 , 19-32 (2000)
[5] Anisiu, M.-C., Szücs-Csillik, I.: Astrophys. Space Sci. 361: 382 (2016)
[6] Curtis, L.J.: American Journal of Physics 46 (9), 896-906 (1978)
[7] Maneff, G.: Comptes Rendus 178, 2159-2161 (1924)
[8] Neumann, C.: BG Teubner (1896)
[9] Ragos, O., Haranas, I., Gkigkitzis, I.: Astrophys Space Sci. 345, 67-72 (2013)
[10] Seeliger, H. von: Astron Nachr. 137, 129-136 (1895)
[11] Zangeneh, M. K., Moradpour, H., Sadeghnezhad, N.: Modern Physics Letters A, 1950168 (2019).