Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/s1/1/3/solution

For the upper half-plane use , and interpret the source's arctangent as this argument. Then is harmonic, so has zero curl and divergence where there is no charge. On the positive boundary and ; on the negative boundary . Hence the two boundary values are respectively zero and .
Branch qualification: the principal real arctangent alone gives zero on both sides of , contradicting the stated negative-axis boundary condition, for example at . The continuous upper-half-plane argument repairs this notation; it is not an optional additive constant.

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