Exact low frequency analysis for a class of exterior boundary value problems for the reduced wave equation in two dimensions (Q1205276)

This paper completes in a certain sense the authors' investigation of the asymptotic behavior of solutions to the reduced wave equation \({\mathcal L} u_ \omega - \omega^ 2 u_ \omega = f\), in an exterior domain \(\Omega\) (with a finite anisotropic, inhomogeneous perturbation of an isotropic, homogeneous medium) as the frequency parameter \(\omega\) tends to zero. Any boundary condition that can be formulated by fixing a closed subspace \({\mathcal V}\) of Sobolev space \(W^{1,2} (\Omega)\) containing Sobolev space \(W^{1,2}_ 0 (\Omega)\) (which is the closed subspace of \(W^{1,2} (\Omega)\) generated by smooth functions having compact support in \(\Omega)\) is allowed. The authors investigate the convergence of \(u_ \omega\) to the solution \(u_ 0\) of the associated static problem \({\mathcal L} u_ 0 = f\), in the case of two dimensions featuring its well-known specific difficulties. The authors' powerful method allows to determine explicitly the asymptotic behavior of \(u_ \omega - u_ 0\) modulo terms of order \(O (\omega^ 2)\) as \(\omega \to 0\). The main result states that under quite weak assumptions \[ u_ \omega - u_ 0 = F_ \omega + O (\omega^ 2) \quad \text{as} \quad \omega \to 0, \] where \(F_ \omega\) is given explicitly in terms of expansion coefficients with respect to low order spherical harmonics and associated homogeneous solutions of the static problem characterized by specific asymptotic behavior for large arguments.