Spline-Galerkin solution of integral equations for three-body scattering above break-up (Q1073569)

A Galerkin method is developed for the solution of a one-dimensional integral equation involving a kernel which has a Cauchy principal value type singularity. This term is of the form \(\int^{b}_{a}(K(x,t)/(t- u))f(t)dt\) where in addition it is known that f(t) has a discontinuous derivative at a known point in [a,b]. The method consists of constructing cubic B-splines on a partition of [a,b] and the approximations are chosen so that \((r,B_ i)=0\) where r is a residual (being zero at the exact solution), \(B_ i\) are the B-splines and \((\psi,\phi)=\int^{b}_{a}\psi (x)\phi (x)dx\) is an inner product. This method is analysed further and it is conjectured (but not absolutely established) that the procedure is 4th order. The method is applied to scattering theory examples involving 3-body interactions where the interactions are through separable two body potentials. The one dimensional integral equations considered arise from this and the calculations are presented extensively.