# How do I formulate a Dirichlet boundary condition for which the boundary depends on the other variable?

I am trying to solve the Poisson equation on a cylindrical grid.

$$\frac{1}{r^2} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} r^2 \frac{\partial f(r, \theta)}{\partial r} = n(r, \theta)$$

Analytically, there is no angular dependence to the function $$n(r, \theta)$$, which is why I'm working in cylindrical coordinates. I would like to define a Dirichlet boundary condition for which $$f(r_{max}(\theta), \theta) = 0$$, but where $$r_{max}(\theta)$$ determines the distance from the origin to the boundary of a cylindrical box containing the simulation space.

Succinctly, I'd like to ask how to define a Dirichlet boundary condition on one variable which depends on the other variable for a 2D PDE.

The code I have tried is simple, but most likely naive:

sol =
NDSolve[
{1/r^2 D[r^2*D[f[r, θ], r], r] == n[r],
Derivative[1, 0][f][0, θ] == 0,
DirichletCondition[f[r, θ] == 0, r == RRMAX[θ]]},
f, {r, θ}]


RRMAX is defined elsewhere, although I suspect it isn't important exactly what for it has for the purpose of the question. For example,

RRMAX[θ_] := 60 (1 - 0.1 Cos[θ])


I get an error message which says the following:

The dependent variable in TemporaryVariable\$xxxxxxxx[0] == 0 in the boundary condition DirichletCondition[...] needs to be linear

If anyone could help me, I'll give my firstborn to you.

• Please provide n[r]. – bbgodfrey Sep 13 '19 at 21:31
• Can you let us know what the extend of the domain is? – user21 Sep 16 '19 at 6:17
• n[r] is arbitrary, but I'm testing it with a Gaussian - n[r] = Exp[-r^2]. – user139632 Sep 16 '19 at 20:56
• The domain includes r = 0 and extends up to a maximum of RMAX (~100). The domain for theta is theta in {0, Pi} – user139632 Sep 16 '19 at 20:57

RRMAX[\[Theta]_] := 60 (1 - 0.1 Cos[\[Theta]])