The Helmholtz equation

Consider the wave equation

with wave speed c.
If we look for time harmonic standing waves of frequency ;
we find that satisfies the Helmholtz equation:
where is the wave number. he solutions of the Helmholtz equation represent !the
spatial part of" solutions of the wave equation.
Figure 5.4: #adiation condition; waves move away from the source
If there is a harmonic momentum source !i.e.$ a harmonic disturbance which is
producing the waves" then it appears on the right%hand%side of the Helmholtz equation$
hus we can think of as a wave source$ see figure &.'.
(hysically we e)pect waves to propagate away from the disturbance generating them and
not towards it. his gives us a radiation condition which replaces the condition that
as used for (oisson*s equation. !+e shall describe this radiation condition shortly."
he ,reen*s function for the Helmholtz equation satisfies
sub-ect to a suitable radiation condition. hen
is the solution of
!sub-ect to the same radiation condition as the ,reen*s function".
.s for (oisson*s equation$ the /aplacian means derivatives are taken with respect to
!x0$x1$x2" and not !y0$y1$y2"$ and the /aplacian is not affected by our choice of origin. .s
before$ it is convenient to introduce in which case the problem becomes
which clearly has spherical symmetry. 3o$ we look for a solution with $ and
the problem is then
since
3o for r45 we have
which implies that or
Figure 5.5: #adiation condition; waves move away from the source
If we consider Ge
%j kc t
$ which is a solution of the wave equation$ we have
6ow any function f!r%ct" represents a wave moving away from r75 towards as t
increases !this is because f is constant on lines r%ct7C"$ i.e.$ outward radiation !see figure
&.&".
8n the other hand a function g!r9ct" represents a wave moving in towards r75 from
!because g is constant along lines r9ct7C"$ i.e.$ inward radiation !see figure &.&".
he %function in the problem for G represents a disturbance at the origin; physically we
e)pect waves to propagate outward away from this disturbance and not inward from
infinity towards the disturbance. his is our radiation condition%%there should only be
waves moving away from the disturbance at the origin. hus we must take B75. 3o
+e e)tend this to all values of r by defining G to be the generalised function
:sing the result of section &.' we find that
so that
and hence we take A7%0:
;inally$ recall that so
or
6ote that as we recover the ,reen*s function for the (oisson equation.
o summarize: he solution of the inhomogeneous Helmholtz problem
!where we assume as " which satisfies the outward radiation condition is
given by
or
This represents the (spatial part of) an
outgoing train of waves caused ! a
disturance in the region where .
"#ercises
0.
3how that in two spatial dimensions
where .
1.
3how that in spherical polars the problem
becomes
Hence deduce that
2.
3uppose that if where R is a constant. <oreover suppose that
where A is a constant. 3how that if is the solution of
then for
hat is$ show that if you are far enough away from a distributed source !i.e.$ "
then it looks like a point source at the origin !i.e.$ " of strength A.
'.
!=)am 0>>&" ,iven that
show that if
then