English

Non-symmetric solutions to an overdetermined problem for the Helmholtz equation in the plane

Analysis of PDEs 2025-09-03 v1

Abstract

In this note we construct smooth bounded domains ΩR2\Omega \subset \mathbb R^2, other than disks, for which the overdetermined problem {Δu+λu=0 in Ω,u=b on Ω,un=c on Ω \left\{ \begin{alignedat}{2} \Delta u + \lambda u &= 0 &\qquad& \text{ in } \Omega, \newline u &= b &\qquad& \text{ on } \partial \Omega, \newline \frac{\partial u}{\partial n} &= c &\qquad& \text{ on } \partial \Omega \end{alignedat} \right. has a solution for some constants λ,b,c0\lambda,b,c \ne 0. These appear to be the first counterexamples to a conjecture of Willms and Gladwell [WG94].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.00455,
  title  = {Non-symmetric solutions to an overdetermined problem for the Helmholtz equation in the plane},
  author = {Miles H. Wheeler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.00455},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

11 pages, 2 figures