Modelling with measures: approximation of a mass-emitting object by a point source.

We consider a linear diffusion equation on Ω: = R(2) \ Ω[Symbol: see text], where Ω[Symbol: see text] is a bounded domain. The time-dependent flux on the boundary Γ: = ∂ Ω[Symbol: see text] is prescribed. The aim of the paper is to approximate the dynamics by the solution of the diffusion equation on the whole of R(2) with a measure-valued point source in the origin and provide estimates for the quality of approximation. For all time t, we derive an L(2)([0,t];L2(Γ))-bound on the difference in flux on the boundary. Moreover, we derive for all t > 0 an L(2)(Ω)-bound and an L2([0,t];H(1)(Ω))-bound for the difference of the solutions to the two models.