Galerkin spectral synthesis methods for diffusion equations with general boundary conditions

An existence and uniqueness theory is developed for the energy dependent, steady state neutron diffusion equation with inhomogeneous oblique boundary conditions imposed. Also, a convergence theory is developed for the Galerkin spectral synthesis approximations which arise when trial functions depending only on energy are utilized. The diffusion coefficient, the total and scattering cross-sectional data are all assumed to be both spatially and energy dependent. Interior interfaces defined by spatial discontinuities in the cross-section data are assumed present. Our estimates are in a Sobolev-type norm, and our results show that the spectral synthesis approximations are optimal in the sense of being of the same order as the error generated by the best approximation to the actual solution from the subspace to which the spectral synthesis approximations belong. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.