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We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server as of 1 March 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.

MiS Preprint
36/2004

The method of images and the Green's functions for spherical domains

Eugene Gutkin and Paul K. Newton

Abstract

Motivated by problems in electrostatics and vortex dynamics, we develop two general methods for constructing the Green's function for simply connected domains on the surface of the unit sphere. We prove a Riemann mapping theorem showing that such domains can be conformally mapped to the upper hemisphere. We then categorize all domains on the sphere for which the Green's function can be constructed by an extension of the classical method of images. We illustrate our methods by several examples, such as the upper-hemisphere, geodesic triangles, and latitudinal rectangles. We describe the point vortex motion in these domains, which is governed by a Hamiltonian determined by the Dirichlet Green's function.

Received:
Jun 16, 2004
Published:
Jun 16, 2004

Related publications

inJournal
2004 Repository Open Access
Eugene Gutkin and Paul K. Newton

The method of images and Green's function for spherical domains

In: Journal of physics / A, 37 (2004) 50, pp. 11989-12003