There's more than one way to cancel a regularized Stokeslet

The Green's functions of Stokes flow are widely used analytical and computational tools for microscale flows. We adapt a procedure from H.A. Lorentz for the method of images in Stokes flow to the regularized setting. Our solutions differ from those previously reported, a surprising result given the uniqueness theory for elliptic partial differential equations. The discrepancy originates in the fact that the two version are exact solutions of inhomogeneous Stokes systems with slightly different forcing on the right-hand sides. We compare the fluid flows produced by the two methods and conclude that the Lorentz versions may be advantageous in some settings.

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