Asymptotics of Wigner 3nj-symbols with small and large angular momenta: an elementary method

Yu and Littlejohn recently studied in (2011 Phys. Rev. A 83 052114 (arXiv:1104.1499)) some asymptotics of Wigner symbols with some small and large angular momenta. They found that in this regime the essential information is captured by the geometry of a tetrahedron, and gave new formulae for 9j-, 12j- and 15 j-symbols. We present here an alternative derivation which leads to a simpler formula, based on the use of the Ponzano-Regge formula for the relevant tetrahedron. The approach is generalized to Wigner 3nj-symbols with some large and small angular momenta, where more than one tetrahedron are needed, leading to new asymptotics for Wigner 3nj-symbols. As an illustration, we present 15 j-symbols with one, two and four small angular momenta, and give an alternative formula to Yu's recent 15 j-symbol with three small spins.