Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / Paper 2 / 3

Use the convention $\Delta G=+{\delta }^{(3)}$. The Dirichlet Green function for this Poisson equation satisfies, for each source point ${\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }\in V$,It is a harmonic function away from its source, with a unit delta singularity there. Its boundary condition is homogeneous even when the original potential has nonzero boundary values; those values enter through the boundary integral. This sign convention is the one giving the plus signs in the formula requested in part (b).

Apply Green's second identity to $\Phi (\mathbf{r})$ and $G(\mathbf{r},{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime })$, differentiating in $\mathbf{r}$:The volume terms become $\Phi ({\mathbf{r}}^{\prime })-{\int }_{V}G\rho dV$. On the boundary $G=0$ and $\Phi =f$, soHere $\partial /\partial n$ is the outward normal derivative in the integration variable. One may justify the identity at the singularity by excising a small sphere around ${\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }$; its unit flux supplies the evaluation $\Phi ({\mathbf{r}}^{\prime })$.

For $\Delta G=+{\delta }^{(3)}$, the fundamental solution of the Laplace equation in three dimensions isIts sign follows from the flux: on a small sphere of radius $\epsilon$, its outward radial derivative is $1/(4\pi {\epsilon }^2)$, with total flux one.

Let $s=|{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }|\in (0,1)$ and put the image point at ${\mathbf{r}}^{\prime \ast }={\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }/s^2$. The method of images gives the Dirichlet Green function inside a sphere:The image lies outside the ball, so its potential is harmonic inside. On $|\mathbf{r}|=1$, the identity $|\mathbf{r}-{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }|=s|\mathbf{r}-{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime \ast }|$ makes the two terms cancel. The original source retains unit strength. For a source at the centre, take the limit:

Let $\overline{{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }}=(x^{\prime },y^{\prime },-z^{\prime })$ be reflection of the interior source across the equatorial plane. Using the ball Green's function from part (c), formBoth terms vanish on the unit sphere. On the flat disk $z=0$, distances to reflected points coincide, and the same is true of their inversion images, so the difference is zero there as well. Only ${\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }$ is inside the upper half-ball; the reflected source is in the lower half-ball, and both inversion images lie outside the full ball. Thus there is exactly one interior delta source, of the required strength.

Explicitly, with $s=|{\mathbf{r}}^{\prime }|$ and stars denoting inversion in the unit sphere,This is the Dirichlet Green function inside a hemisphere, constructed from four image-source terms.