Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-5/2/d/solution

The Cauchy problem for a partial differential equation here prescribes both the value and the normal derivative , together with . Only one of these traces would be boundary data for a usual elliptic boundary problem, rather than full Cauchy data.
Every real hypersurface is a non-characteristic hypersurface for the Laplace equation. In local real analytic coordinates flattening the real analytic hypersurface , the coefficient of the second transverse derivative is nonzero: its principal coefficient is the squared length of the conormal. The equation can therefore be solved for that second derivative. The normal derivative data determine the transverse first derivative, because the coefficient relating them is nonzero and the tangential first derivatives are already determined by .
The coefficients, flattened Cauchy data, and coordinate change are all real analytic. The Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem applies, giving a unique local real analytic solution around each point of . This is a local existence assertion, not a claim of stable dependence in arbitrary Sobolev space norms.

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