Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-4/30b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 ii Paper 4 30B Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Write the Fourier coefficients of the two boundary functions as . The Laplace equation in polar coordinates is . A separated mode satisfies . The ansatz gives , so the solutions are for and for .
Set and . Solving the two boundary equations for every mode yieldsFor real boundary data, the conjugate coefficients ensure this is real. On any compact subannulus , the multipliers and all their differentiated versions are bounded by a polynomial in times . The boundary coefficients are square summable by Parseval identity, so Cauchy-Schwarz inequality proves locally uniform convergence of the series and of all its derivatives. Thus it is smooth and satisfies the Laplace equation term by term.
Because the data are only , the Dirichlet boundary condition is interpreted in on circles. As , the first multiplier tends to one and the second to zero; both lie between zero and one. Dominated convergence of the square-summable Fourier coefficients gives in , and similarly as . Finally, any harmonic solution with these traces has Fourier coefficients satisfying the radial equation above with the same two endpoint values. Uniqueness of those scalar boundary-value problems makes every coefficient equal to the displayed one. Hence this is the unique harmonic solution with the prescribed traces; pointwise values at every boundary angle are not required by the given data.
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