Rational Legendre pseudospectral approach for solving nonlinear differential equations of Lane-Emden type

Lane-Emden equation is a nonlinear singular equation in the astrophysics that corresponds to the polytropic models. In this paper, a pseudospectral technique is proposed to solve the Lane-Emden type equations on a semi-infinite domain. The method is based on rational Legendre functions and Gauss-Radau integration. The method reduces solving the nonlinear ordinary differential equation to solve a system of nonlinear algebraic equations. The comparison of the results with the other numerical methods shows the efficiency and accuracy of this method. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.