Integral equations for acoustic scattering by partially impenetrable composite objects (Q2253781)

The paper is devoted to boundary integral equations for acoustic scattering at composite objects with impenetrable inclusions. They are modeled as transmission problems for the Helmholtz equation with piecewise constant coefficients and Dirichlet boundary conditions imposed on a close surface. The authors establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of nontrivial solutions of the corresponding homogeneous first kind integral equations, so-called spurious resonances. They can occur if the impenetrable subdomain is completely surrounded by another homogeneous medium. To avoid spurious resonances, modified versions of the boundary integral equations are considered in the paper, which are compatible with variational formulations in natural trace spaces. These single-trace equations are the basis for universally well-posed stabilized multi-trace formulations, which allow effective preconditioning techniques.