 Solution

If two harmonic solutions have the same body force and prescribed boundary traction, their difference has no body force and is traction-free. A nonzero difference would therefore be a free eigenfunction at that frequency. For any frequency outside the countable exceptional set found above, the difference must vanish, so the forced boundary-value solution, when it exists, is unique. At an eigenfrequency, a free eigenfunction can be added to any existing solution, and a resonant forcing may fail to admit a steady harmonic response. This distinguishes uniqueness from existence.

For the full time-dependent problem, let $\mathbf{w}$ be the difference between two fields with identical forces, tractions and initial displacement field and velocity. It obeys $\rho {\mathbf{w}}_{tt}=\nabla \cdot \mathbf{\sigma }(\mathbf{w})$, zero boundary traction, and zero initial data. Its energy uniqueness for traction-driven elasticity follows by direct integration:Multiply the equation by ${\mathbf{w}}_t$ and integrate by parts. Major symmetry turns the strain term into the derivative of elastic energy, giving $E^{\prime }(t)={\int }_{\partial \mathcal{D}}{\mathbf{w}}_t\cdot \mathbf{t}(\mathbf{w})dS=0$. Stable elasticity makes $E\ge 0$, and $E(0)=0$ gives ${\mathbf{w}}_t=0$. Thus $\mathbf{w}$ equals its initial value zero. Even rigid zero-strain motions cannot survive these initial conditions.

The PDF correctly specifies zero initial displacement field and zero initial velocity; the TeX duplicates displacement field in the second condition. The complete causal displacement field is unique, including when its Fourier representation contains resonant modal contributions fixed by the initial data.