Irregular solid harmonic 2026-10-14
An irregular solid harmonic is harmonic on punctured three-dimensional Euclidean space and generally singular at the origin. The Kelvin transform maps a degree- regular solid harmonic to a constant multiple of its irregular counterpart.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 76 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For a degree- homogeneous polynomial, the Euler homogeneous function theorem gives . On in three-dimensional Euclidean space,Apply the product rule for the Laplacian:For the second term vanishes. Hence homogeneous harmonic inversion givesThe nonzero factor proves both directions: the transformed function is harmonic exactly when away from the origin. Since is a polynomial, vanishing on the punctured space makes it identically zero everywhere.
Equivalently, homogeneity shows that the Kelvin transform isIt sends a regular solid harmonic to an irregular solid harmonic, exchanging the radial powers and . The origin is excluded from the harmonicity statement: for example, the transform is harmonic only away from zero and has a distributional Dirac delta function source there.