A high-order algorithm for multiple electromagnetic scattering in three dimensions (Q1014375)

The authors present a high-order algorithm to simulate the interaction of electromagnetic waves with a collection of disjoint three-dimensional obstacles situated in a homogeneous medium with vanishing conductivity. The algorithm is spectrally accurate, with error \(O(n^{-s})\), where \(n\) is the order of polynomial approximation and \(s\) depends on the smoothness of the surfaces. To solve the surface integral equation for the multiple scattering problem, a direct method or an iterative boundary decomposition method can be used. The authors demonstrate the algorithm using both of these techniques for near and well separated obstacles, occurring in many physically important problems such as scattering by atmospheric aerosols or ice crystals. Simulation results for ensembles of spheres and non-convex scatterers are given, which demonstrate the high accuracy and fast convergence of the method.