Decompositions of surface vector fields and topological characterizations of the codimensions

Abstract

We prove that the space of vector fields on the boundary of a bounded domain in three dimensions is decomposed into three subspaces orthogonal to each other: elements of the first one extend to the inside of the domain as gradient fields of harmonic functions, the second one to the outside of the domain as gradient fields of harmonic functions, and the third one to both the inside and the outside as divergence-free harmonic vector fields. We also characterize by the first Betti numbers the codimensions of inclusions of various subspaces related to the decomposition.