Description of Test Experiment 1.

H. bin Zubair
December 27, 2013

1 2-dimensional Poisson PDE with Dirichlet BC

This is a standard Poisson partial differential equation, given as:
 2
∂2

∂
− + u(x, y) = f (x, y) (x, y) ∈ (a1 , a2 ) × (b1 , b2 ); (1)
∂x ∂y
u(x, y) = g(x, y), x ∈ {a1 , a2 }, y ∈ {b1 , b2 }. (2)
The PDE in the interior region is given by (1), while the boundary conditions
(of Dirichlet type) are given by (2).

2 The Test Function and the Source Function

We take a test function u(x, y) for purposes of experimentation given by (3),
and prescribe its values as g(x, y) at the boundaries, so as to simulate Dirichlet
boundary conditions.
sin(c1 πx) + sin(c2 πy)
u(x, y) = c1 , c2 , c3 ∈ R (3)
c3 + x + y
Now we compute the negative Laplacian of this function and we call it
f (x, y), to simulate the source function of the PDE. Differentiating u(x, y) par-
tially with respect to x, we get:
∂u (c1 π) cos(c1 πx)(c3 + x + y) − (sin(c1 πx) + sin(c2 πy))
= (4)
∂x (c3 + x + y)2
∂u
Differentiating ∂x with respect to x:

∂2u 1 n 
= −(c1 π)2 sin(c1 πx)(c3 + x + y) (5)
∂x2 (c3 + x + y)4

+ (c1 π) cos(c1 πx) − (c1 π) cos(c1 πx)] (c3 + x + y)2
 o
− [(c1 π) cos(c1 πx)(c3 + x + y) − sin(c1 πx) − sin(c2 πy)][2(c3 + x + y)]

Substituting the right hand side of Equation (3) as u in Equation (5) and sim-
plifying, we arrive at:
∂2u −(c1 π)2 sin(c1 πx) −2(c1 π) cos(c1 πx) + 2u
= + (6)
∂x2 (c3 + x + y) (c3 + x + y)2

1
Similarly with respect to y, we get the second partial derivative as:

∂2u −(c2 π)2 sin(c2 πy) −2(c2 π) cos(c2 πy) + 2u

2
= + (7)
∂y (c3 + x + y) (c3 + x + y)2

As the source function f (x, y) is the negative sum of the second partial
derivatives given by (6) and (7), we finally arrive at it as:

(c1 π)2 sin(c1 πx) + (c2 π)2 sin(c2 πy)

f (x, y) =
(c3 + x + y)
2(c1 π) cos(c1 πx) + 2(c2 π) cos(c2 πy) − 2(2u)
+ (8)
(c3 + x + y)2

Which completes the description of the test problem.

3 Extension to d-dimensions
The whole problem can be effortlessly generalized to any number of orthogonal
Cartesian dimensions, symbolized by d. In the PDE the only change is reflected
in the Laplacian, which is now a sum of d- second order partial derivatives. The
Cartesian coordinate of a point will now be symbolized by x, which would be
a d-tuple, i.e., x = (x1 , x2 , · · · , xd ). The test function u(x) now extended to
d-dimensions is given by (9).
d
X
sin(ci πxi )
i=1
u(x) = d
ci ∈ R, (9)
X
c(d+1) + xi
i+1

Likewise, the source function now extended to d-dimensions, i.e., f (x), is given
by:
 
X d  Xd 
(ci π)2 sin(ci πxi ) (ci π) cos(ci πxi ) − d(u) 

 

 

 
i=1 i=1
f (x) = d
+ 2 d
(10)
 X  
  X 2 

c(d+1) + xi 


 c(d+1) + xi 



i=1 i=1

4 2-dimensional visualization of u(x)