Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-12/1/i/solution

Take a compactly supported smooth variation and set . Its support is away from the boundary, so it preserves any prescribed boundary values. Differentiating the functional at gives the first variation
By integration by parts, there is no boundary term. The fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations therefore gives the Euler-Lagrange equation
Expanding the total derivative, an equivalent classical form is
Repeated indices are summed. In the last term involving , the derivative holds fixed; the other terms account for their dependence on . Compactly supported variations derive the interior equation without imposing a natural boundary condition.

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