An exact solution is derived for the line source that maximizes a generalization

of the directivity in any given direction

for arbitrarily prescribed values of the aperture length

, the edge behavior exponent

, and the constraining superdirectivity ratio

. The quantity

represents exactly directivity for

and approximately for any other value of

. The solution is expressed in its natural form as a series of spheroidal functions

of order

. The most directive pattern space factor possible for an (

)- term series expansion is shown to be

and the resulting aperture distribution to be
![A \\lgroup frac{2y}{l} rgroup = \\lgroup 1-[frac{2y}{l}]^{2} rgroup^{\\alpha } \\sum \\min{n=0}\\max {N} frac{a_{\\alpha n}}{\\nu_{\\alpha n}(c)} \\psi_{\\alpha n} \\lgroup c, frac{2y}{l} rgroup](/images/tex/13739.gif)
, where

is an arbitrary (real) normalizing constant and the other

must satisfy the following set of

linear equations:

in which
![X_{pn}(\\mu,D_{\\alpha }) = 2\\psi_{\\alpha n}(c, \\cos \\theta_{y0}) \\psi_{\\alpha p}(c, \\cos \\theta_{y0})(1 - \\cos^{2} \\theta_{y0})^{\\alpha } +(\\mu[\\gamma _{\\alpha n}(c) - \\gamma _{\\alpha }] - D_{\\alpha })\\Lambda _{\\alpha n}(c) \\delta _{pn}](/images/tex/13743.gif)
, and where the unknown directivity

and Lagrange multiplier

, must be such that

is the largest root of the determinantal equation

that satisfies the constraining condition
![\\sum \\min{n=0}\\max {N} a_{\\alpha n}^{2}[\\gamma _{\\alpha n}(c) - \\gamma _{\\alpha }]\\Lambda _{\\alpha n}(c) = 0](/images/tex/13745.gif)
;

is

,

, and

are characteristic numbers of the spheroidal functions, and

is the normalization factor for the spheroidal functions on the interval (-1- ,1). By letting

the solution becomes exact. Numerical results obtained for

and

, when

and

(broadside), reveal that for every unit increase in maximum directivity the value of

must be increased by a factor of about one hundred.