The Fast Solution of Poisson’s and the Biharmonic Equations on Irregular Regions

We present fast methods for solving Laplace’s and the biharmonic equations on irregular regions with smooth boundaries. The methods used for solving both equations make use of fast Poisson solvers on a rectangular region in which the irregular region is embedded. They also both use an integral equation formulation of the problem where the integral equations are Fredholm integral equations of the second kind. The main idea is to use the integral equation formulation to define a discontinuous extension of the solution to the rest of the rectangular region. Fast solvers are then used to compute the extended solution. Aside from solving the equations we have also been able to compute derivatives of the solutions with little loss of accuracy when the data was sufficiently smooth.