A Laplace equation approach to the Behrens--Fisher problem

Abstract

We develop a partial differential equation formulation of the Behrens-Fisher problem for two independent normal samples with unknown and unequal variances. An orthogonal decomposition separates mean and residual components (corresponding to the centered within-sample variation left after removal of the mean directions) and recasts the studentized difference of sample means as a scale-invariant geometric constraint. This reduction transforms the distributional problem into the evaluation of spherical wedge probabilities, which are identified with harmonic measure and with the value at the origin of a Laplace-Dirichlet boundary value problem. From this framework, we derive exact finite-sample representations for the cumulative distribution function and the probability density function in terms of beta functions, with dependence only on the sample sizes and the variance ratio. These representations place the Behrens-Fisher law in a standard special-function form that is directly accessible in widely available commercial software -- including Microsoft Excel -- thereby facilitating distributional evaluation and quantile computation. We also obtain a Gegenbauer separation-of-variables expansion for the associated harmonic extension and its threshold derivative, with coefficients in closed Beta-Gamma form, and derive sharp tail expansions with explicit leading constants and higher-order corrections.