The Newtonian kernel at the intersection of two discs

Abstract

We present an exact, closed-form expression for the Newtonian potential of the characteristic function associated with two overlapping discs in the plane. This setting naturally arises when discretising nonlocal interaction terms present in models of phase separation, aggregation dynamics, and quantum systems. We characterise the convolution integral as a piecewise function on the distance between the disc centres, with transitions dictated by the geometry of the overlapping region. Additionally, we derive detailed asymptotic expansions for the small-overlap regime, which allows us to provide stable double-precision codes.