RAPIDAPPROXIMATIONTOTHEVOIGT/FADDEEVAFUNCTION
ANDITSDERIVATIVES
R.J.WELLS
Atmospheric,OceanicandPlanetaryPhysics,
ClarendonLaboratory,ParksRoad,Oxford,OXPU,U.K.
Abstract|ExistingalgorithmsforthecalculationoftheVoigt/Faddeevafunctionare
adaptedtoproduceamethodwhichismoreecientforatmosphericline-by-linecalculations.
Theapproachallowsgreatercomputationalspeedtobeobtainedifthemaximumrelative
errorcriteriacanberelaxed.Asupplementaryalgorithmtocalculatethepartialderivatives
oftheVoigtfunctionsimultaneouslywiththeFaddevafunctionisalsospecied.
INTRODUCTION
Thereisanextensiveliteraturediscussingthefunctionw(z)ofthecomplexvariablez=x+iy
w(z)=iZexp(t)
ztdt=exp(z)erfc(iz)=K(x;y)+iL(x;y):
w(z)isvariouslydescribedastheFaddeevafunction,thecomplexprobabilityfunctionandthe
plasmadispersionfunction.Usinglogarithmicaxes,FigureshowsK(x;y)andFigureshows
L(x;y)for :x , : y .Notethatintheupperhalfplane,y ,
K(x;y)=K(x;y),L(x;y)=L(x;y),