A central circle is a circle with trilinear equation
such that
is a triangle center and
is a homogeneous function that is symmetric in the side lengths
,
, and
of the reference triangle.
In this work, the term "circle function" is used to refer to the function corresponding to
. A triangle center
that is equal to
modulo factors symmetric in
,
,
and
,
, and
is then said to correspond to the circle function
. Circles with centers
corresponding to a given circle function
therefore have the same radical
line with the circumcircle with
.
The circle function of a circle is related to the -power (i.e., the circle power
with respect to the
-vertex)
by