A decomposition theorem of surface vector fields and spectral structure of the Neumann-Poincaré operator in elasticity

Abstract: We prove that the space of vector fields on the boundary of a bounded domain with the Lipschitz boundary in three dimensions is decomposed into three subspaces: elements of the first one extend to the inside the domain as divergence-free and rotation-free vector fields, the second one to the outside as divergence-free and rotation-free vector fields, and the third one to both the inside and the outside as divergence-free harmonic vector fields. We then show that each subspace in the decomposition is infinite-dimensional. We also prove under a mild regularity assumption on the boundary that the decomposition is almost direct in the sense that any intersection of two subspaces is finite-dimensional. We actually prove that the dimension of intersection is bounded by the first Betti number of the boundary. In particular, if the boundary is simply connected, then the decomposition is direct. We apply this decomposition theorem to investigate spectral properties of the Neumann-Poincar\'e operator in elasticity, whose cubic polynomial is known to be compact. We prove that each linear factor of the cubic polynomial is compact on each subspace of decomposition separately and those subspaces characterize eigenspaces of the Neumann-Poincar\'e operator. We then prove all the results for three dimensions, decomposition of surface vector fields and spectral structure, are extended to higher dimensions. We also prove analogous but different results in two dimensions.