Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-differential-equations-and-applications-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2008/b/7/solution
Past exam of the differential equations and applications course of the University of Oxford 2008 B 7 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
For fixed source , define the Dirichlet Green function by in , on . It is harmonic away from the source and has singularity . The outward normal vector derivative is at a boundary point of arc-length parameter .
Green's second identity gives . Substituting the two PDEs and the boundary data yieldsThe singular version follows by excising a small source disk and taking its radius to zero, or directly by the distributional identity.
For the upper half-plane use the opposite-sign image source at :The image lies outside the domain, so it is harmonic inside; the true source has the required unit singularity, and the two distances agree at , giving zero boundary value. On that boundary , soThe assumed far-field decay makes the large semicircle contribution vanish. With , the representation becomesFinally set , . The Jacobian matrix cancels the denominator, givingIf is even, the substitution in the Poisson integral gives . At this agrees with the continuous even boundary trace.
New to topics? Read the docs here!