Layer Potential Techniques for the Narrow Escape Problem

Habib Ammari, Kostis Kalimeris, Hyeonbae Kang, Hyundae Lee

Published 2010-03-11Version 1

The narrow escape problem consists of deriving the asymptotic expansion of the solution of a drift-diffusion equation with the Dirichlet boundary condition on a small absorbing part of the boundary and the Neumann boundary condition on the remaining reflecting boundaries. Using layer potential techniques, we rigorously find high-order asymptotic expansions of such solutions. We explicitly show the nonlinear interaction of many small absorbing targets. Based on the asymptotic theory for eigenvalue problems developed in \cite{book}, we also construct high-order asymptotic formulas for eigenvalues of the Laplace and the drifted Laplace operators for mixed boundary conditions on large and small pieces of the boundary.