Short time heat diffusion in compact domains with discontinuous transmission boundary conditions

Abstract

We consider a heat problem with discontinuous diffusion coefficientsand discontinuous transmission boundary conditions with a resistancecoefficient. For all compact $(\epsilon,\delta)$-domains $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ with a $d$-set boundary (for instance, aself-similar fractal), we find the first term of the small-timeasymptotic expansion of the heat content in the complement of$\Omega$, and also the second-order term in the case of a regularboundary. The asymptotic expansion is different for the cases offinite and infinite resistance of the boundary. The derived formulasrelate the heat content to the volume of the interior Minkowskisausage and present a mathematical justification to the de Gennes'approach. The accuracy of the analytical results is illustrated bysolving the heat problem on prefractal domains by a finite elementsmethod.