Software frameworks for integral equations in electromagnetic scattering based on Calderón identities

Abstract

In recent years there have been tremendous advances in the theoretical understanding of boundary integral equations for Maxwell problems. In particular, stable dual pairings of discretisation spaces have been developed that allow robust formulations of the preconditioned electric field, magnetic field and combined field integral equations. Within the BEM++ boundary element library we have developed implementations of these frameworks that allow an intuitive formulation of the typical Maxwell boundary integral formulations within a few lines of code. The basis for these developments is an efficient and robust implementation of Calderón identities together with a product algebra that hides and automates most technicalities involved in assembling Galerkin boundary integral equations. In this paper we demonstrate this framework and use it to derive very simple and robust software formulations of the standard preconditioned electric field, magnetic field and regularised combined field integral equations for Maxwell.