Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-3/30b/a/solution

There is a missing hypothesis in the printed uniqueness claim: on an unbounded domain it is false without a condition at infinity. For example, on take and . Both and are classical solutions, although .
For the intended bounded-domain statement, let be solutions and put . The derivative assumption makes nondecreasing in its first argument. On the open set ,
The difference vanishes on , and continuity makes it zero on every interior boundary point of as well. Since is bounded, the weak maximum principle for subharmonic functions gives , contradicting there unless is empty. Thus . Interchanging gives the reverse inequality, proving . An appropriate bound or decay at infinity can replace boundedness, but the printed hypotheses alone do not include it.

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