Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-perturbation-methods-and-applied-complex-variables-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2010/b/6/iii/solution
Past exam of the perturbation methods and applied complex variables course of the University of Oxford 2010 B 6 iii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Use the Fourier convention . Transforming the differential equation givesDefine analytic above the downward cut from zero, and analytic below the upward cut from . More explicitly take and . In the strip , put . Then and ; at , , fixing the choice throughout the strip. The decaying mode is .
The positive-half-line boundary value has transform for . Thus and . The transformed boundary relation isLet . Splitting off the pole at zero givesThe left side is analytic in the lower domain up to : its apparent pole at zero is removable. The right side is analytic for . By the supplied boundedness of and , both sides tend to zero at infinity in their half-planes. The gluing and Liouville theorem argument therefore makes their common value zero. ConsequentlyChoose the inversion contour oriented left to right, with any fixed . It passes above the pole at zero and below the branch point at . Fourier inversion gives exactlyThus the appropriate value is . The other proposed value reverses the residue of the boundary step and violates its prescribed positive value.
There is also a far-field qualification in the source. The formula is the intended bounded mixed-boundary solution, but it does not tend to zero along every path to infinity. This can be checked explicitly: in parabolic coordinates , , with , the mixed-boundary convection-diffusion solution in parabolic coordinates isIndeed and ; the identity proves the differential equation. At the boundary value is one, and at its normal derivative is zero. Its traces are for and for , whose one-sided transforms are the expressions derived above.
At a fixed angle away from the positive axis, and . But at fixed and , and . Hence the radial decay statement cannot hold uniformly as printed; the intended decay is away from the downstream boundary layer. The exact expression also identifies its thickness as .
The exact mixed-boundary solution decays away from the downstream boundary layer
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