Numerical exploitation of symmetry in integral equations (Q1284730)

Linear integral operators describing physical problems on a symmetric domain often are equivariant (automorphic) with respect to an appropriate group of transformations leaving the domain invariant. Under suitable discretizations, the resulting system matrices are also equivariant with respect to a corresponding representation group. The authors describe a method exploiting this equivariance in the numerical solution of linear equations and eigenvalue problems. The symmetry reduction is studied in connection with quadrature formulae and the Nyström method. The collocation and Galerkin methods are also considered from the point of view of symmetry. It is shown that appropriate collocation discretizations of integral equations involving equivariant kernels lead to equivariant matrices.