Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/iii/paper-78/2/i/solution

Let be displacement along the source line and let be its force per unit length. The shear-horizontal wave equation is
Rotational symmetry about the line makes . Integrate over a disk of radius and use the divergence theorem:
At a fixed regular time, a logarithmic singularity and its time derivatives are locally integrable; the inertial integral is and vanishes as . The leading balance is consequently , giving the SH line-source near-field singularity
The reference length only changes the bounded term; boundary conditions and source history determine that term. This is a local fixed-time statement, interpreted distributionally in time if the source force has jumps. It establishes logarithmic spatial dependence directly, without extrapolating far-field ray spreading into the source.

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