Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-2/2/b/solution

With , the boundary data have the finite Legendre polynomial expansion
Inside the sphere, every term is singular at the origin and must be absent. Matching at therefore gives
In the exterior, decay at infinity excludes all terms, including the constant term at . Thus
Both harmonic functions have the prescribed Dirichlet boundary condition, and each is finite throughout its own domain. The interior expression is regular even at the origin because and . Uniqueness of the Dirichlet problem identifies these as the respective solutions. Their normal derivatives need not match: the two Dirichlet problems do not require a single harmonic function across the bounding sphere.

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