Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/paper-2/3/iii/solution

Take the source at the origin and write . Repeated reflection in places the sources at with strengths , . There are countably infinitely many images; is the original source. A convergent prescription groups adjacent opposite charges:
Each bracket is on compact sets away from the source, so the paired series converges absolutely. The individual unsigned point-charge terms would not be absolutely summable. On , reflection pairs the index with ; on , it pairs with . Their distances agree and signs oppose. Symmetric finite cutoffs leave only a vanishing far-tail contribution, proving both zero boundary values. All nonzero-index sources lie outside the slab. This is the centered-source version of the Dirichlet Green function between parallel planes, selected to decay at large transverse distance.
Figure 1.
Image locations and strengths for an octant, an interior spherical source and two parallel plates
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