Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/ia/paper-2/10b/c/solution

Suppose are solutions and put . Then and satisfies the homogeneous Robin boundary condition
For , Green's first identity gives
The left side is nonnegative, so both sides vanish and . For , the Dirichlet boundary condition on and the same identity again imply . The solution is therefore unique for every .
For a regular spherically symmetric solution, the Laplacian equation is
Regularity at the origin gives , hence . Applying the boundary condition at yields
At the Neumann boundary condition would require , which is impossible for . Equivalently, its compatibility condition would require .

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