Laplace's equation

In mathematics, Laplace's equation is a partial differential equation named after its discoverer Pierre-Simon Laplace. The solutions of Laplace's equation are important in many fields of science, notably the fields of electromagnetism, astronomy, and fluid dynamics, because they describe the behavior of electric, gravitational, and fluid potentials.

In three dimensions, the problem is to find twice-differentiable real-valued functions φ of real variables x, y, and z such that

${\partial ^{2}\varphi \over \partial x^{2}}+{\partial ^{2}\varphi \over \partial y^{2}}+{\partial ^{2}\varphi \over \partial z^{2}}=0.$

This is often written as

$\nabla ^{2}\varphi =0$

or

$\operatorname {div} \,\operatorname {grad} \,\varphi =0,$

where div is the divergence and grad is the gradient, or

$\Delta \varphi =0$

where Δ is the Laplace operator.

Solutions of Laplace's equation are called harmonic functions.

If the right-hand side is specified as a given function f(x, y, z), i.e.

$\Delta \varphi =f$

then the equation is called Poisson's equation. Laplace's equation and Poisson's equation are the simplest examples of elliptic partial differential equations. The partial differential operator $\nabla ^{2}$ or $\Delta$ (which may be defined in any number of dimensions) is called the Laplace operator or just the Laplacian.

The Dirichlet problem for Laplace's equation consists in finding a solution φ on some domain $D$ such that $\phi$ on the boundary of $D$ is equal to some given function. Since the Laplace operator appears in the heat equation, one physical interpretation of this problem is as follows: fix the temperature on the boundary of the domain and wait until the temperature in the interior doesn't change anymore; the temperature distribution in the interior will then be given by the solution to the corresponding Dirichlet problem.

The Neumann boundary conditions for Laplace's equation specify not the function $\phi$ itself on the boundary of $D$, but its normal derivative. Physically, this corresponds to the construction of a potential for a vector field whose effect is known at the boundary of $D$ alone.

Solutions of Laplace's equation are called harmonic functions; they are all analytic within the domain where the equation is satisfied. If any two functions are solutions to Laplace's equation, (or any linear differential equation), their sum (or any linear combination) is also a solution. This property, called the principle of superposition is very useful, since solutions to complex problems can be constructed by summing simple solutions.

Laplace equation in two dimensions

The Laplace equation in two independent variables has the form

$\phi _{xx}+\phi _{yy}=0.\,$

Analytic functions

The real and imaginary parts of an analytic function both satisfy the Laplace equation. That is, if z= x + iy, and if

$f(z)=u(x,y)+iv(x,y),\,$

then the necessary and sufficient condition that f(z) be analytic is that the Cauchy-Riemann equations be satisfied:

$u_{x}=v_{y},\quad v_{x}=-u_{y}.\,$

It follows that

$u_{yy}=(-v_{x})_{y}=-(v_{y})_{x}=-(u_{x})_{x}.\,$

Therefore u satisfies the Laplace equation. A similar calculation shows that v also satisfies the Laplace equation.

Conversely, given a harmonic function, it is the real part of an analytic function f(z) (at least locally). If a trial form is

$f(z)=\phi (x,y)+i\psi (x,y),\,$

then the Cauchy-Riemann equations will be satisfied if we set

$\psi _{x}=-\phi _{y},\quad \psi _{y}=\phi _{x}\,$.

This relation does not determine ψ, but only its increments:

$d\psi =-\phi _{y}dx+\phi _{x}dy.\,$

The Laplace equation for φ implies that the integrability condition for ψ is satisfied:

$\psi _{xy}=\psi _{yx},\,$

and thus ψ may be defined by a line integral. The integrability condition and Stokes' theorem implies that the value of the line integral connecting two points is independent of the path. The resulting pair of solutions of the Laplace equation are called conjugate harmonic functions. This construction is only valid locally, or provided that the path does not loop around a singularity. For example, if r and θ are polar coordinates and

$\phi =\log r,\,$

then a corresponding analytic function is

$f(z)=\log z=\log r+i\theta .\,$

However, the angle θ is single-valued only in a region that does not enclose the origin.

The close connection between the Laplace equation and analytic functions implies that any solution of the Laplace equation has derivatives of all orders, and can be expanded in a power series, at least inside a circle that does not enclose a singularity. This is in sharp contrast to solutions of the wave equation, which involve arbitrary functions, some of which may have only a few derivatives.

There is an intimate connection between power series and Fourier series. If we expand a function f in a power series inside a circle of radius R, this means that

$f(z)=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }c_{n}z^{n},\,$

with suitably defined coefficients whose real and imaginary parts are given by

$c_{n}=a_{n}+ib_{n}.\,$

Therefore

$f(z)=\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\left[a_{n}r^{n}\cos n\theta -b_{n}\sin n\theta \right]+i\sum _{n=1}^{\infty }\left[a_{n}\sin n\theta +b_{n}\cos n\theta \right],\,$

which is a Fourier series for f.

Fluid flow

Let the quantities u and v be the horizontal and vertical components of the velocity field of a steady incompressible, irrotational flow in two dimensions. The condition that the flow be incompressible is that

$u_{x}+v_{y}=0,\,$

and the condition that the flow be irrotational is that

$v_{x}-u_{y}=0.\,$

If we define the differential of a function ψ by

$d\psi =vdx-udy,\,$

then the incompressibility condition is the integrability condition for this differential: the resulting function is called the stream function because it is constant along flow lines. The first derivatives of ψ are given by

$\psi _{x}=v,\quad \psi _{y}=-u,\,$

and the irrotationality condition implies that ψ satisfies the Laplace equation. The harmonic function φ that is conjugate to ψ is called the velocity potential. The Cauchy-Riemann equations imply that

$\phi _{x}=-u,\quad \phi _{y}=-v.\,$

Thus every analytic function corresponds to a steady incompressible, irrotational fluid flow in the plane. The real part is the velocity potential, and the imaginary part is the stream function.

Electrostatics

According to Maxwell's equations, an electric field (u,v) in two space dimensions that is independent of time satisfies

$\nabla \times (u,v)=v_{x}-u_{y}=0,\,$

and

$\nabla \cdot (u,v)=\rho ,\,$

where ρ is the charge density. The first Maxwell equation is the integrability condition for the differential

$d\phi =-udx-vdy,\,$

so the electric potential φ may be constructed to satisfy

$\phi _{x}=-u,\quad \phi _{y}=-v.\,$

The second of Maxwell's equations then implies that

$\phi _{xx}+\phi _{yy}=-\rho ,\,$

which is the Poisson equation.

See also

• spherical harmonic
• potential flow

External links

• Laplace Equation (particular solutions and boundary value problems) at EqWorld: The World of Mathematical Equations.
• Example initial-boundary value problems using Laplace's equation from exampleproblems.com.

References

• L.C. Evans, Partial Differential Equations, American Mathematical Society, Providence, 1998. ISBN 0-8218-0772-2
• I. G. Petrovsky, Partial Differential Equations, W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1967.
• A. D. Polyanin, Handbook of Linear Partial Differential Equations for Engineers and Scientists, Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2002. ISBN 1-58488-299-9