5/14/23, 3:12 PM Effective potential - Wikipedia

Effective potential
The effective potential (also known as effective potential energy) combines multiple, perhaps
opposing, effects into a single potential. In its basic form, it is the sum of the 'opposing' centrifugal
potential energy with the potential energy of a dynamical system. It may be used to determine the
orbits of planets (both Newtonian and relativistic) and to perform semi-classical atomic calculations,
and often allows problems to be reduced to fewer dimensions.

Definition
The basic form of potential is defined as:

where

L is the angular momentum

r is the distance between the two masses
μ is the reduced mass of the two bodies (approximately equal Effective potential. E > 0: hyperbolic
to the mass of the orbiting body if one mass is much larger orbit (A1 as pericenter), E = 0:
than the other); and parabolic orbit (A2 as pericenter), E
U(r) is the general form of the potential. < 0: elliptic orbit (A3 as pericenter,
A3' as apocenter), E = Emin: circular
The effective force, then, is the negative gradient of the effective orbit (A4 as radius). Points A1, ..., A4
potential: are called turning points.

where denotes a unit vector in the radial direction.

Important properties
There are many useful features of the effective potential, such as

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To find the radius of a circular orbit, simply minimize the effective potential with respect to , or
equivalently set the net force to zero and then solve for :

After solving for , plug this back into to find the maximum value of the effective potential
.

A circular orbit may be either stable or unstable. If it is unstable, a small perturbation could
destabilize the orbit, but a stable orbit would return to equilibrium. To determine the stability of a
circular orbit, determine the concavity of the effective potential. If the concavity is positive, the orbit
is stable:

The frequency of small oscillations, using basic Hamiltonian analysis, is

where the double prime indicates the second derivative of the effective potential with respect to and
it is evaluated at a minimum.

Gravitational potential
Consider a particle of mass m orbiting a much heavier object of
mass M. Assume Newtonian mechanics, which is both classical
and non-relativistic. The conservation of energy and angular
momentum give two constants E and L, which have values

when the motion of the larger mass is negligible. In these Components of the effective
expressions, potential of two rotating bodies: (top)
the combined gravitational
potentials; (btm) the combined
is the derivative of r with respect to time,
gravitational and rotational
is the angular velocity of mass m, potentials
G is the gravitational constant,

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E is the total energy, and

L is the angular momentum.

Only two variables are needed, since the motion occurs in a plane.
Substituting the second expression into the first and rearranging
gives

Visualisation of the effective

potential in a plane containing the
orbit (grey rubber-sheet model with
purple contours of equal potential),
the Lagrangian points (red) and a
where planet (blue) orbiting a star
(yellow)[1]

is the effective potential.[Note 1] The original two-variable problem has been reduced to a one-variable
problem. For many applications the effective potential can be treated exactly like the potential energy
of a one-dimensional system: for instance, an energy diagram using the effective potential determines
turning points and locations of stable and unstable equilibria. A similar method may be used in other
applications, for instance determining orbits in a general relativistic Schwarzschild metric.

Effective potentials are widely used in various condensed matter subfields, e.g. the Gauss-core
potential (Likos 2002, Baeurle 2004) and the screened Coulomb potential (Likos 2001).

See also
Geopotential

Notes
1. A similar derivation may be found in José & Saletan, Classical Dynamics: A Contemporary
Approach, pgs. 31–33

References
1. Seidov, Zakir F. (2004). "Seidov, Roche Problem". The Astrophysical Journal. 603: 283–284.
arXiv:astro-ph/0311272 (https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0311272). Bibcode:2004ApJ...603..283S (ht
tps://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ApJ...603..283S). doi:10.1086/381315 (https://doi.org/10.108
6%2F381315).

Further reading
José, JV; Saletan, EJ (1998). Classical Dynamics: A Contemporary Approach (1st ed.).
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63636-0..

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Likos, C.N.; Rosenfeldt, S.; Dingenouts, N.; Ballauff, M.; Lindner, P.; Werner, N.; Vögtle, F.; et al.
(2002). "Gaussian effective interaction between flexible dendrimers of fourth generation: a
theoretical and experimental study" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110719010918/http://jcp.aip.or
g/jcpsa6/v117/i4/p1869_s1?isAuthorized=no). J. Chem. Phys. 117 (4): 1869–1877.
Bibcode:2002JChPh.117.1869L (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002JChPh.117.1869L).
doi:10.1063/1.1486209 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.1486209). Archived from the original (http://j
cp.aip.org/jcpsa6/v117/i4/p1869_s1?isAuthorized=no) on 2011-07-19.

Baeurle, S.A.; Kroener J. (2004). "Modeling Effective Interactions of Micellar Aggregates of Ionic
Surfactants with the Gauss-Core Potential". J. Math. Chem. 36 (4): 409–421.
doi:10.1023/B:JOMC.0000044526.22457.bb (https://doi.org/10.1023%2FB%3AJOMC.000004452
6.22457.bb).

Likos, C.N. (2001). "Effective interactions in soft condensed matter physics". Physics Reports. 348
(4–5): 267–439. Bibcode:2001PhR...348..267L (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001PhR...34
8..267L). CiteSeerX 10.1.1.473.7668 (https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.4
73.7668). doi:10.1016/S0370-1573(00)00141-1 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0370-1573%2800%
2900141-1).

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