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Let $D$ be a simply connected open subset of $\mathbb{R}^3$. It is well-known that if ${\bf v}(x,y,z)=[P(x,y,z), Q(x,y,z), R(x,y,z)]$ is a $C^1$ function on $D$ such that $$\mbox{curl }\bf{v}=\bf{0}$$ then there exists $C^2$ function $f(x,y,z)$ on $D$ such that $${\bf v}=\mbox{grad }f$$ on $D$.

My question is: Can we use this fact to prove that if $\bf{w}$ is a vector field with $\mbox{div }\bf{w}=0$ on $D$, then there exists a vector field $\bf{t}$ on $D$ such that $\mbox{curl }\bf{t}=\bf{w}$?

I can do this for 2-d case.

TCL
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1 Answers1

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Case 1: When the domain of interest is the whole $\mathbb{R}^3$, the answer is yes. This is obtained by the Helmholtz decomposition for $C^1$-vector field: $$ \mathbf{w} = \nabla \phi + \nabla \times \mathbf{A} ,\tag{1} $$ where $$ \phi(x) = -\int_{\mathbb{R}^3} \Phi(y-x) \nabla_y \cdot \mathbf{w} (y) \,dy, \\ \mathbf{A} (x) = \int_{\mathbb{R}^3} \Phi(y-x) \nabla_y \times \mathbf{w} (y)\,dy . $$ The $\Phi(\xi)$ is the fundamental solution to $-\Delta \Phi = \delta_0$ in whole $\mathbb{R}^3$. Here we have to assume $\mathbf{w}$ has certain decaying properties so that the surface integral $\displaystyle\int_{\partial B} \Phi(y-x)\mathbf{n}\times \mathbf{w} (y)\,dS(y)$ and $\displaystyle\int_{\partial B} \Phi(y-x)\mathbf{n}\times \mathbf{w} (y)\,dS(y)$ vanish for arbitrary large ball $B$, $|\mathbf{w}|\to 0 $ when $|y|\to \infty$ suffices.

Now if $\mathbf{w} $ is divergence free, we can see that $\mathbf{w} = \nabla \times \mathbf{A}$.


Case 2: When the domain of interest $\Omega$ is simply-connected, bounded and open, we have to consider the boundary condition of $\mathbf{w}$. The potentials in (1) will become: $$ \phi(x) = -\int_{\Omega} \Phi(y-x) \nabla_y \cdot \mathbf{w} (y) \, dy +\int_{\partial \Omega}\Phi(y-x)\mathbf{w}(y)\cdot \mathbf{n}\,dS(y), \\ \mathbf{A}(x) = \int_{\Omega} \Phi(y-x) \nabla_y \times \mathbf{w}(y)\,dy - \int_{\partial \Omega} \Phi(y-x)\mathbf{n}\times \mathbf{w}(y)\,dS(y). $$ Here $\Phi$ is the fundamental solution or Green function for $$ \left\{\begin{aligned} -\Delta_y \Phi(y-x) &= \delta_x(y) \quad \text{in }\Omega, \\ \Phi &=0 \quad \text{on } \partial\Omega. \end{aligned}\right. $$ We have the boundary term here, by divergence theorem: $$ \int_{\partial \Omega}\Phi(y-x)\mathbf{w}(y)\cdot \mathbf{n}\,dS(y) = \int_{\Omega}\nabla \cdot\Big(\Phi(y-x)\mathbf{w}(y)\Big)\,dy \\ = \int_{\Omega} \Phi(y-x) \nabla_y \cdot \mathbf{w} (y) \, dy + \int_{\Omega} \nabla_y \Phi(y-x) \cdot \mathbf{w} (y) \, dy= \int_{\Omega} \nabla_y \Phi(y-x) \cdot \mathbf{w} (y) \, dy. $$ Hence we can see that in this case, $\mathbf{w} = \nabla \times \mathbf{A}$ if

  • $\mathbf{w}$ is perpendicular to the gradient field of the fundamental solution pointwisely (or a.e.) in this domain.

  • $\mathbf{w}\cdot \mathbf{n}=0$ pointwisely (or a.e.) on the boundary of this domain.

Counterexamples for not making boundary term vanish: in $\mathbb{R}^3$, let $\phi$ be the solution to the following boundary value problem

$$ \left\{\begin{aligned} -\Delta \phi&= 0\quad \text{in }\Omega, \\ \phi &=g \neq 0 \quad \text{on } \partial\Omega. \end{aligned}\right. $$ We can see that if we let $\mathbf{w} = \nabla \phi$, i.e., the gradient of a harmonic function, $\mathbf{w} $ has zero divergence, yet $\mathbf{w} $ is never a curl field.


This is the classical case, for vector potentials (or Helmholtz decomposition) in the distributional sense, this is my favorite reference: http://perso.univ-rennes1.fr/monique.dauge/publis/ABDG_VPot.pdf

Shuhao Cao
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  • Can you recommend a book that contains a proof of Helmholtz decomposition formula? – TCL Sep 11 '13 at 20:06
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    @TCL Griffiths Intro to electrodynamics, p557 for the whole space. For a bounded domain, I don't know any specific reference, I derived it in this answer: http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/449486/the-proof-of-the-helmholtz-decomposition-theorem-through-neumann-boundary-value/452328 The technique is similar to construct the Green's representation formula for Poisson boundary value problem. – Shuhao Cao Sep 11 '13 at 22:03