Modelling with measures: Approximation of a mass-emitting object by a   point source
  We consider a linear diffusion equation on $\Omega:=\mathbb{R}^2\setminus\bar{\Omega_\mathcal{O}}$, where $\Omega_\mathcal{O}$ is a bounded domain. The time-dependent flux on the boundary $\Gamma:=\partial\Omega_\mathcal{O}$ is prescribed. The aim of the paper is to approximate the dynamics by the solution of the diffusion equation on the whole of $\mathbb{R}^2$ with a measure-valued point source in the origin and provide estimates for the quality of approximation. For all time $t$, we derive an $L^2([0,t];L^2(\Gamma))$-bound on the difference in flux on the boundary. Moreover, we derive for all $t>0$ an $L^2(\Omega)$-bound and an $L^2([0,t];H^1(\Omega))$-bound for the difference of the solutions to the two models. 
Joep H.M. Evers, Sander C. Hille and Adrian Muntean
math.AP