Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford / 2015 / Prelims / Mathematics V / 2 / a

For a continuously differentiable vector field $\mathbf{F}$ on a neighborhood of the closure of $V$, the divergence theorem statesHere $\mathbf{n}$ is the outward unit normal vector; the right side is the outward flux through the boundary.

Apply the product rule to each vector component and sum:Thus the divergence of a scalar field times a vector field contains a divergence term and a dot product with the gradient of the scalar field.

Choose $\mathbf{F}=\nabla \psi$ in the preceding product rule and apply the divergence theorem. Since $\nabla \cdot \nabla \psi =\Delta \psi$, this gives the first of Green's identities:Here ${\partial }_n\psi =\mathbf{n}\cdot \nabla \psi$ is the outward normal derivative. Interchange $\varphi$ and $\psi$, then subtract. The gradient dot products cancel, yielding the second of Green's identities:For example, $\varphi ,\psi \in C^2(\overline{V})$ with the needed extensions suffice for these applications of the divergence theorem.