A new approach for determining the potential field

Abstract

Various methods have been put forward by geodesists to determine the Earth's external potential field based on the given boundary value or the data dis tributed in space. For the same purpose, a new approach is introduced in this paper. Based on the new approach (named as the fictitious compress recovery approach), once given the potential V (or any harmonic function) defined in the domain outside the Earth on the Earth's physical surface or the surface defined by the satellite altitude, the Earth's external potential field could be determined. The new approach has broad applications in geophysics (including geodesy). One example of the applications is provided: the normal gravity field gener ated by WGS84 reference ellipsoid is determined with the accuracy level of 0:84 mm, based on the new ap proach. Two simulation experimental tests are provided, which show that the new approach is valid and effective for determining the potential ¯eld, provided that the po tential (or any regular harmonic function) is given on the boundary, no matter which boundary it is, the Earth's surface or the surface de¯ned by the satellite altitude. With this new approach, the convergence problem as well as the downward continuation problem is satisfac torily solved.