On the Huygens absorbing boundary conditions for electromagnetics (Q2456692)

For numerical treatment of Maxwell equations, the computational domain has to be truncated by electric or magnetic walls or by absorbing boundary conditions (ABC), simulating the open space. A widely used and powerful formulation of ABCs is the perfectly matched layer (PML), is introduced in [\textit{J.-P. Bérenger}, ``A perfectly matched layer for the absorption of electromagnetic waves'', J. Comput. Phys. 114, No. 2, 185--200 (1994; Zbl 0814.65129)]. In the present paper the author analyses novel ABCs recently appeared in the literature, the multiple absorbing boundary condition (MAS) [\textit{I. W. Sudiarta}, ``An absorbing boundary condition for FDTD truncation using multiple absorbing surfaces'', IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 51, 3268--3275 (2003)] and the re-radiating boundary condition (rRBC) [\textit{R. E. Diaz} and \textit{I. Scherbatko}, ``A simple stackable re-radiating boundary condition (rRBC) for FDTD'', IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag. 46, No. 1, 124--130 (2004) and ``A new multistack radiation boundary condition for FDTD based on self-teleportation of fields'', J. Comput. Phys. 203, No. 1, 176--190 (2005; Zbl 1059.78036)], introducing so-called Huygens ABCs (HABCs) with the property that the MAS and rRBC are special cases of the HABCs. Deriving theoretical properties in the continuous as well as in the discrete space it is shown the MAS and rRBC absorb traveling waves but, they reflect evanescent waves. Traveling and evanescent waves are presented in many problems of numerical electromagnetics. Thus, the HABCs are of interest because they can be combined in a simple way with other ABCs. Two corresponding combinations of operators designed to absorb traveling waves as well as evanescent waves are treated, especially in the case when the HABC is placed in front of the well-known PML ABC. The results are illustrated by applying the finite difference finite time domain (FDTD) method to particular realistic problems of computational electromagnetics.