Showing the divergence of a continuously differentiable vector field in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is zero

689 Views Asked by At

Suppose $F(x)$ is a continuously differentiable (that is, first derivative exist and are continuous) vector field in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that satisfies the bound $$|F(x)| \leq \frac{1}{1 + |x|^3}$$ Show that $\int\int\int_{\mathbb{R}^3} \text{div} F dx = 0$.

Attempted proof - Suppose $F(x)$ is a continuously differentiable vector field in $\mathbb{R}^3$ such that $$|F(x)| \leq \frac{1}{1 + |x|^3}$$ From defintion of vector field We have $F:D\subseteq \mathbb{R}^3\to \mathbb{R}^3$ where $D$ is an open subset of $\mathbb{R}^3$. For every $x\in \mathbb{R}^3$, we can write $$F(x) = F_1(x) i + F_2(x) j + F_3(x) k$$ where $ i,j,k$ are the unit vectors. Since $F(x)$ is continuously-differentiable then so are the component functions.

I am a bit lost on trying to go from here. I know that $$\text{div} F = \nabla F = \left(\frac{\partial}{\partial x},\frac{\partial}{\partial y},\frac{\partial}{\partial z}\right)\cdot \left(F_1,F_2,F_3\right) = \frac{\partial F_1}{\partial x} + \frac{\partial F_2}{\partial y} + \frac{\partial F_3}{\partial z}$$ I think I need to incorporate the bound that $|F(x)|$ in order to show the desired result. Perhaps this is best done using an epsilon-delta sort of proof but I am not sure. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Attempted proof 2 - Let $\{B(0,n)\}_{n=1}^{\infty}$ be a sequence of balls. Since $F(x)$ is continuously differentiable vector field, its components are also continuously differentiable. We know that the surface area of $\partial B(0,n)$ is $4\pi n^2$ and $$|F|\leq \frac{1}{1 + n^3}$$ Thus from the divergent theorem we have $$\int\int\int_{\mathbb{R}^3}\text{div}F dx = \int\int_{B(0,n)}F \times 0 = 0$$

Attempted proof 3 - Let $\{B(0,n)\}_{n=1}^{\infty}$ be a sequence of balls. Since $F(x)$ is a continuously differentiable vector field, its components are also continuously differentiable. We know that the surface area of $\partial B(0,n)$ is $4\pi n^2$ and $$|F|\leq \frac{1}{1 + n^3}$$ Let $S$ be the boundary surface of $B(0,n)$ with positive orientation then from the divergence theorem $$\iint_{S}F dS = \iiint_{B(0,n)}F dB(0,n) $$ Thus if we let $n\to \infty$ we see that $$\iiint_{B(0,n)}F dB(0,n) = 0$$

Attempted proof 4 - Let $\{B(0,n)\}_{n=1}^{\infty}$ be a sequence of balls. Since $F(x)$ is continuously differentiable vector field, so are its components. Let $S$ be the boundary surface of $B(0,n)$ with positive orientation. We know that the surface area of $\partial B(0,n)$ is $4\pi n^2$ and that $$|F|\leq \frac{1}{1 + n^3}$$ Thus if we apply the divergence theorem on the sequence of balls then we have $$\Big|\int_{\mathbb{R}^3}\text{div}F\,dx\Big| = \lim_n\Big|\int_{B(0,n)}\text{div}F\,dx\Big| = \lim_n\Big|\int_{\partial B(0,n)}F \cdot \nu\,dS\Big| \le \lim_n\frac{4\pi n^2}{1 + n^3} = 0.$$ Thus the result follows.

2

There are 2 best solutions below

11
On BEST ANSWER

Apply the divergence theorem on a sequence of balls $B(0,n)$ where $n\to\infty$ and use the bound on $F$ to bound the boundary integral $\int_{\partial B(0,n)}F\cdot \nu\,dS$

4
On

The third attempt seems to be on the right track, however there is no divergence and it is not entirely clear how you are using the given bound. To expand on Gio67's answer,

$$\Big|\int_{\mathbb{R}^3}\text{div}F\,dx\Big| = \lim_n\Big|\int_{B(0,n)}\text{div}F\,dx\Big| = \lim_n\Big|\int_{\partial B(0,n)}F \cdot \nu\,dS\Big| \le \lim_n\frac{4\pi n^2}{1 + n^3} = 0.$$