Low frequency acoustic and electromagnetic scattering (Q1069686)

This paper deals with two classes of problems arising from acoustics and electromagnetic scattering in the low frequency situations. The first class of problem involves solving the Helmholtz equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions on an arbitrary two-dimensional body whereas the second one is an interior-exterior interface problem with the Helmholtz equation in the exterior. Low frequency analysis shows that there are two intermediate problems which solve the above problems to accuracy \(O(k^ 2(\log k)^ 2)\) where k is the wave number. These solutions are more accurate than the simpler zero frequency approximations but require very little more work to compute. For the Dirichlet problem numerical examples are shown to verify our theoretical estimates.