The gravitational potential and its derivatives of a right rectangular prism with depth-dependent density following an n-th degree polynomial

Abstract

The direct gravity problem and its solution belong to the basis of the gravimetry. The solutions of this problem are well known for wide class of the source bodies with the constant density contrast. The non-uniform density approximation leads to the relatively complicated mathematical formalism. The analytical solutions for this type of sources are rare and currently these bodies are very useful in the gravimetrical modeling. The solution for the vertical component of the gravitational attraction vector for the 3D right rectangular prism is known in the geophysical literature for the density variations described by the 3-rd degree polynomial. We generalized this solution for an n-th degree, not only for the vertical component, but for the horizontal components, the second-order derivatives and the potential as well. The 2D modifications of all given formulae are presented, too. The presented general solutions, which involve a hypergeometric functions, can be used as they are, or as an auxiliary tool to derive desired solution for the given degree of the density polynomial as a sum of the elementary functions. The pros-and-cons of these approaches (the complexity of the programming codes, runtimes) are discussed, too.