Boundary layer on a high-conductivity domain (Q1866591)

Maxwell's equations are considered without external current densities and in a medium consisting of a bounded conducting obstacle \(\Omega \) with smooth boundary placed in vacuum. The initial data are assumed to be divergence-free. Permeability and dielectricity are assumed to be constant (w.l.o.g. equal to \(1\)). The limit of the obstacles conductivity \(\sigma := \frac{1}{\eta }\, \chi _{_{\Omega }}\) as \(\eta \to 0+\) is studied (\(\chi _{_{\Omega }}\) denoting here the characteristic function of \(\Omega \)). It is shown that the perfect conductor, i.e. Maxwell's equations in \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\) with the boundary condition of total reflection, is indeed the limit case as \(\eta \to 0+\). An asymptotic boundary layer expansion in powers of \(\sqrt{\eta }\) controlling the behaviour of the electromagnetic field as \(\eta \to 0+\) is derived in \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\setminus \overline{\Omega }\) and in \(\Omega \). It is seen in particular that the current \(\sigma \, E\) induced by the electric field \(E\) in \(\Omega \) concentrates near the boundary \(\partial \Omega \) as \(\eta \) becomes smaller.