The rapid evaluation of volume integrals of potential theory on general regions (Q1195426)

The author presents a numerical method for the rapid, high order accurate evaluation of certain volume integrals in potential theory on general regions. The kernels of the integrals are either a fundamental solution, or a linear combination of the derivatives of a fundamental solution of some second-order linear elliptic partial differential equation. Instead of using standard quadrature formulas, the method recommended here relies on rapid methods of solving the partial differential equation of which the kernel is the solution. Therefore, the number of operations needed to evaluate the volume integral is comparable with the number of operations needed to solve the partial differential equation on a rectangular region with a regular grid. The method requires no evaluation of the kernel. The paper concludes with some numerical experiments.