Bounding acoustic layer potentials via oscillatory integral techniques (Q2264055)

The author considers boundary value problems for the Helmholtz equation \(\Delta u+k^2 u =0\) in a 3d unbounded connected domain bounded by a surface \(\Gamma\). The problems are reduced to integral equations with the single-layer operator \(S_k\) and other layer operators. The author proves that if \(\Gamma\) belongs to \(C^2\) and has strictly positive curvature, then there exist a positive constant \(C\) such that \(\|S_k\|_{L_2(\Gamma) \to L_2(\Gamma)} \leq C k^{-1/13}(\log k)^{1/2}\) for sufficiently large \(k\). This result is proved using a combination of (1) techniques for obtaining the asymptotics of oscillatory integrals, and (2) techniques for obtaining the asymptotics of integrals that become singular in the appropriate parameter limit. This paper is the first time such techniques have been applied to bounding norms of layer potentials. The main motivation for proving this result is that it is a component of a proof that the combined-field integral operator for the Helmholtz exterior Dirichlet problem is coercive on such domains in the space \(L_2(\Gamma)\).