Jacobi Elliptic Functions - Introduction

Introduction

There are twelve Jacobian elliptic functions. Each of the twelve corresponds to an arrow drawn from one corner of a rectangle to another. The corners of the rectangle are labeled, by convention, s, c, d and n. The rectangle is understood to be lying on the complex plane, so that s is at the origin, c is at the point K on the real axis, d is at the point K + iK' and n is at point iK' on the imaginary axis. The numbers K and K' are called the quarter periods. The twelve Jacobian elliptic functions are then pq, where each of p and q is one of the letters s, c, d, n.

The Jacobian elliptic functions are then the unique doubly periodic, meromorphic functions satisfying the following three properties:

• There is a simple zero at the corner p, and a simple pole at the corner q.
• The step from p to q is equal to half the period of the function pq u; that is, the function pq u is periodic in the direction pq, with the period being twice the distance from p to q. The function pq u is also periodic in the other two directions, with a period such that the distance from p to one of the other corners is a quarter period.
• If the function pq u is expanded in terms of u at one of the corners, the leading term in the expansion has a coefficient of 1. In other words, the leading term of the expansion of pq u at the corner p is u; the leading term of the expansion at the corner q is 1/u, and the leading term of an expansion at the other two corners is 1.

More generally, there is no need to impose a rectangle; a parallelogram will do. However, if K and iK' are kept on the real and imaginary axis, respectively, then the Jacobi elliptic functions pq u will be real functions when u is real.