Application of Polylogarithms to the Approximate Solution of the Inhomogeneous Telegraph Equation for the Distortionless Line

Abstract

The paper deals with a mixed problem for the telegraph equation well-known in electrical engineering and electronics, provided that the line is free from distortion. This problem is reduced to the analogous one for the one-dimensional inhomogeneous wave equation. Its solution can be found as the sum of the solution for a mixed homogeneous boundary value problem for the corresponding homogeneous wave equation and for the solution of a non-homogeneous wave equation with homogeneous boundary data and zero initial conditions. Solutions to both problems can be found by separating the variables in the form of a series of trigonometric functions of the line point with time-dependent coefficients. Such solutions are inconvenient for real application because they require calculation of a large number of integrals, and it is difficult to estimate the miscalculation. An alternative method for solving this problem is proposed, based on the use of special functions, viz. polylogarithms, which are complex power-series with power coefficients converging in a unit circle. The exact solution of the problem is expressed in the integral form via the imaginary part of the first-order polylogarithm on the unit circle, and the approximate one is expressed in the form of a finite sum via the real part of the dilogarithm and the imaginary part of the third-order polylogarithm. All these parts of the polylogarithms are periodic functions that have polynomial expressions of the corresponding powers on the segment of the length equal to the period. This makes it possible to effectively find an approximate solution to the problem. Also, a simple and convenient error estimate of the approximate solution of the problem is found. It is linear with respect to the step of splitting the line and the step of splitting the time range in which the problem is considered. The score is uniform along the length of the line at each fixed point of time. A concrete example of solving the problem according to the proposed mode is presented; graphs of exact and approximate solutions are constructed.