For radial mass density within radius , integration against the spherical volume element gives . The dimensionless quantity has
Thus is positive, strictly decreasing and convex, with and . Its asymptotic forms are near zero and at infinity. The density's central divergence is integrable against the factor .
For a spherical surface of radius with exterior mass density , integrate the spherical volume element to obtain . The moments give the displayed expression. Its leading thin-atmosphere approximation is surface area times column mass, ; the two positive correction terms account for the growth of shell area with altitude.
In cylindrical coordinates, the two surfaces meet when , giving and . The solid has , , and . With volume element ,
The upper-minus-lower height is nonnegative throughout that radial interval.
The volume element in cylindrical coordinates is . Integrating from the base to the curved surface gives
Hence
For a complete rotation this is half the volume of the enclosing cylinder.
In spherical coordinates, integrating over the angular variables gives the volume element for a spherical shell. The mass density therefore gives the total mass
Thus
At height , the elliptic paraboloid has a circular cross-section , of area . The cylindrical coordinates volume element therefore reduces the volume integral to
For the specified , the derivative is . Thus is integrable at zero and decays exponentially at infinity. Apply integration by parts first on a truncated interval and then take the endpoint limits:
Both boundary terms vanish because . With , integration by substitution gives the Gaussian integral:
The integrand is singular at the apex but the resulting improper integral is convergent.
The volume element is the absolute Jacobian determinant times the coordinate differentials. In the Cartesian coordinate system, cylindrical coordinates and spherical coordinates , respectively,
Here is distance from the origin, is the polar angle from the positive axis, and is the azimuthal angle. The spherical coordinates convention fixes which angle enters the sine factor.
In spherical coordinates, with polar angle and azimuth , the volume element is
The mass density is radial, so integrating over both angles gives
Writing , this becomes
Although the mass density diverges like near the origin, multiplication by the spherical volume element gives an integrable expression. Thus the central singularity does not produce infinite mass.
Let be the orthogonal matrix taking old components to new ones, so . With repeated indices summed, the tensor component transformation law is
An isotropic tensor has the same components after every proper rotation. Since , the Kronecker delta is invariant. Applying this identity to each factor shows that and every linear combination are invariant as well.
To show that an isotropic second-rank tensor must be scalar, start with any matrix , without assuming symmetry. Invariance under quarter-turns about axes 1 and 2 implies invariance under their squares, the half-turns
The first forces to vanish. The second also forces to vanish. The matrix is therefore diagonal. A quarter-turn about axis 1 interchanges its 22 and 33 entries; one about axis 2 interchanges its 11 and 33 entries. All three must agree, giving .
A rotation preserves the ball , and the volume element. Changing integration variables by that rotation shows that and are isotropic tensors. Write . Taking its tensor contraction gives
so . Every permutation of the indices of leaves its integrand unchanged. Its complete symmetry therefore makes all three isotropic coefficients equal, say :
Double contraction gives . Thus the isotropic fourth moment of a ball and its radial contraction are
Put , so that . Contract with the prescribed unit vector twice:
This has the spectrum of a scalar matrix plus a rank-one projector. In the direction , the outer product acts as the identity; on the plane perpendicular to , it acts as zero. Therefore
Any nonzero multiple of is a parallel eigenvector, and any nonzero vector in the perpendicular plane is a transverse eigenvector. The transverse eigenvalue has multiplicity two; an orthonormal basis of that plane completes a set of principal axes.
Volume element 2026-10-18
Under a smooth locally invertible coordinate map into Euclidean space, the positive volume element in a multiple integral is multiplied by the absolute Jacobian determinant. In three-dimensional spherical coordinates, ; in cylindrical coordinates, . The absolute value distinguishes positive integration measure from a signed orientation convention.