Poisson 2D
2D elliptic PDE forward problem. Solves for the solution field given a known source term and boundary conditions.
Background
The Poisson equation is one of the most fundamental elliptic PDEs in mathematical physics. It arises in electrostatics (computing the electric potential from a charge distribution), gravitational theory, and steady-state heat conduction. As a time-independent equation it describes equilibrium states, making it the simplest setting for demonstrating PDE residual and boundary condition constraints. The template uses a manufactured solution with an analytically known source term, so the forward solve can be verified exactly.
Governing Equations
with source term:
where:
- \(u(x, y)\): solution field
- \(\nabla^2 = \dfrac{\partial^2}{\partial x^2} + \dfrac{\partial^2}{\partial y^2}\): 2D Laplacian
- \(f(x, y)\): prescribed source (code:
source_fn)
Default Configuration
The generated template uses the following values.
Boundary conditions: \(u = 0\) on \(\partial\Omega\) (homogeneous Dirichlet on all four edges).
Domain: \((x, y) \in [0, 1]^2\)
In the inverse variant (--direction inverse), a scaling parameter \(k\) is introduced as
\(-k\,\nabla^2 u = f\) with true value \(k = 1\) (code: TRUE_K).
Features Demonstrated
PDEResidualConstraintfor interior residual enforcementDirichletBCConstraintfor boundary condition enforcement- Forward problem (no parameter recovery)
Results
