On the Sloan iteration applied to integral equations of the first kind (Q4024985)

A numerical approximation of the solution of an integral equation of the first kind with logarithmic kernel is discussed. Such an equation frequently arises in the boundary integral equation method for harmonic problems. When the piecewise constant collocation method is used to solve this equation the convergence rate is \(O(h)\) in the \(L_ 2\) norm. The paper deals with constructing \(O(h^ 3)\) or \(O(h^ 5)\) convergence in any Sobolev norm. Such a convergence is obtained by a simple cheap postprocessing of the original collocation solution. The key step in deriving the postprocessor arises from writing the first kind equation as a non-standard second kind equation, and in then using the fact that the collocation method amounts to a non-standard projection method for this second kind equation. These facts then suggest applying the Sloan iteration [cf. \textit{I. H. Sloan}, Numer. Math. 25, 231-238 (1976; Zbl 0304.65092)] to obtain a smoother, more accurate (superconvergent) solution. The theoretical convergence rates are verified in a numerical example.