Express the position vector in the suggested orthonormal basis as . Then
This orthogonal transformation preserves and has Jacobian determinant of absolute value one, so . The basis actually reverses orientation; the absolute value of the Jacobian determinant is why no minus sign enters the volume integral. Also , so the half-space becomes .
At each fixed , the section is the disk , of area . Its reflection symmetry in makes the integral of vanish. Hence the required triple integral is
The negative sign is also consistent with the cap lying in the direction , where its average coordinate is negative.
The orientation assumption gives . The same open half-space is therefore characterized by
Equality would put the point in the separating plane, rather than strictly on the same side.
Set . Since these vectors form a basis, write . The reciprocal basis gives
A point is in the closed tetrahedron precisely when it is a convex combination of the four vertices, with weights . Thus the necessary and sufficient conditions are
These four half-spaces are the four inward sides of its faces. This is tetrahedron membership via scalar triple products; making all inequalities strict describes the interior.
The domain is the three-dimensional upper half-space. Reflect the source point to . The method of images places an opposite source at this reflected point, giving the Dirichlet image kernel for the three-dimensional modified Helmholtz equation
On , the two Euclidean distances are equal, so the terms cancel exactly. The image lies outside the domain, so its contribution satisfies the homogeneous modified Helmholtz equation everywhere inside; only the original source contributes a Dirac delta. Both terms decay at infinity, including for , and the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition follows.
Planar London screening 2026-10-14
Take a homogeneous material exhibiting superconductivity in the half-space , bounded by vacuum at . Fix the temperature below the superconducting transition temperature, take a constant positive London penetration depth , and assume a local, linear London equation description in a Meissner state. The applied magnetic field is weak enough that it neither nucleates a quantum vortex nor appreciably suppresses the material's superconductivity. Assume translation invariance in , no imposed transport electric current, and a tangential boundary magnetic field . Here is the local surface magnetic flux density, equal to the imposed vacuum magnetic field in this infinite planar geometry; it is not automatically the far-away applied value for a finite object.
For a bounded, decaying interior solution, the London equations, magnetostatic Ampère law and Gauss's law for magnetism give
The solution is
At one London penetration depth the magnetic field is of its surface value; at five it is . There is no finite depth where this exponential is exactly zero. The differential equation excludes the growing exponential through the deep-interior boundary condition. A constant normal component cannot decay in this geometry: Gauss's law for magnetism would require . A perpendicular applied magnetic field on a finite plate therefore requires a different spatial problem.[ref]
Figure 1. . Original analytic profiles, not measured data. Left: the Planar London screening solution, with vacuum at and the material at . Right: Finite-thickness Meissner screening in a slab of thickness , with equal tangential surface magnetic fields. Blue is ; orange is the signed current density . Different horizontal origins are labeled explicitly. Details.
Set the lower half-space load to using the causal vertical wavenumber branch, which excludes a wave arriving from depth infinity. Apply the uniform-layer SH impedance update upwards through every layer, keeping particle velocity and traction continuous. For upper half-space impedance , incident velocity and reflected velocity , the top values are and . Their ratio gives the displayed reflection coefficient, incorporating every underlying interface and multiple reflection.
For great circles on a sphere, with no coincident circles or triple intersection, the number of open regions is . The first circle gives two regions. Each subsequent circle meets the previous circles at distinct points and is divided into that many arcs, each splitting a previous region. Summing the increments proves the formula. If the circles are , each region has one fixed sign vector . Conversely a realized strict sign vector has a connected region: its cone is an intersection of open half-spaces, and radial projection of line segments connects any two points.
A layer with shear modulus and wave speed lies between a rigid support and a half-space with shear modulus and wave speed . A trapped antiplane shear normal mode has layer amplitude and exterior amplitude , where and . Continuity of displacement field and traction gives the displayed dispersion relation. It requires and differs from a Love wave with a free boundary.
A system of linear inequalities requires several linear inequalities to hold simultaneously. The notation compares coordinates componentwise, giving one inequality per row of the matrix . Its solution set is the intersection of the corresponding half-spaces. For non-strict inequalities it is a linear polyhedron, which may be empty. For example, , , are inconsistent: adding their equivalent forms , , gives . A Farkas certificate for linear inequalities generalizes this cancellation.
Let . The reciprocal basis gives the coordinates of any position vector as
The point lies in the closed tetrahedron with vertices exactly when and . Indeed, these conditions express it as a convex combination of the four vertices, with fourth weight . They also describe the intersection of the four inward half-spaces bounded by its faces. Strict inequalities characterize its interior.
For , a topological -manifold with boundary is a Hausdorff second-countable space locally homeomorphic to relatively open sets in the half-space . The openness here is in the subspace topology of , not necessarily in . Its intrinsic boundary consists of points sent to ; the remaining points have ordinary coordinate charts with images open in Euclidean space. The intrinsic boundary is independent of the chosen chart.[ref]
The closed interval illustrates the distinction: its interior points have open interval charts, while and have charts modeled on , using and . Its intrinsic boundary is . The circle has empty intrinsic boundary even though its boundary of a set as a subset of the Euclidean plane is the whole circle. A topological manifold without boundary is therefore a special case with , and a smooth atlas on the half-space charts gives a manifold with boundary in the smooth sense.