Multiple traces boundary integral formulation for Helmholtz transmission problems

We present a novel boundary integral formulation of the Helmholtz transmission problem for bounded composite scatterers (that is, piecewise constant material parameters in "subdomains”) that directly lends itself to operator preconditioning via Calderón projectors. The method relies on local traces on subdomains and weak enforcement of transmission conditions. The variational formulation is set in Cartesian products of standard Dirichlet and special Neumann trace spaces for which restriction and extension by zero are well defined. In particular, the Neumann trace spaces over each subdomain boundary are built as piecewise $\widetilde{H}^{-1/2}$ -distributions over each associated interface. Through the use of interior Calderón projectors, the problem is cast in variational Galerkin form with an operator matrix whose diagonal is composed of block boundary integral operators associated with the subdomains. We show existence and uniqueness of solutions based on an extension of Lions' projection lemma for non-closed subspaces. We also investigate asymptotic quasi-optimality of conforming boundary element Galerkin discretization. Numerical experiments in 2-D confirm the efficacy of the method and a performance matching that of another widely used boundary element discretization. They also demonstrate its amenability to different types of preconditionin

Preconditioning the 2D Helmholtz equation with polarized traces

We present a domain decomposition solver for the 2D Helmholtz equation, with a special choice of integral transmission condition that involves polarizing the waves into oneway components. This refinement of the transmission condition is the key to combining local direct solves into an efficient iterative scheme, which can then be deployed in a highperformance computing environment. The method involves an expensive, but embarrassingly parallel precomputation of local Green's functions, and a fast online computation of layer potentials in partitioned low-rank form. The online part has sequential complexity that scales sublinearly with respect to the number of volume unknowns, even in the high-frequency regime. The favorable complexity scaling continues to hold in the context of low-order finite difference schemes for standard community models such as BP and Marmousi2, where convergence occurs in 5 to 10 GMRES iterations.TOTAL (Firm)United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific ResearchUnited States. Office of Naval ResearchNational Science Foundation (U.S.

An introduction to Multitrace Formulations and Associated Domain Decomposition Solvers

Multitrace formulations (MTFs) are based on a decomposition of the problem domain into subdomains, and thus domain decomposition solvers are of interest. The fully rigorous mathematical MTF can however be daunting for the non-specialist. We introduce in this paper MTFs on a simple model problem using concepts familiar to researchers in domain decomposition. This allows us to get a new understanding of MTFs and a natural block Jacobi iteration, for which we determine optimal relaxation parameters. We then show how iterative multitrace formulation solvers are related to a well known domain decomposition method called optimal Schwarz method: a method which used Dirichlet to Neumann maps in the transmission condition. We finally show that the insight gained from the simple model problem leads to remarkable identities for Calderon projectors and related operators, and the convergence results and optimal choice of the relaxation parameter we obtained is independent of the geometry, the space dimension of the problem{\color{black}, and the precise form of the spatial elliptic operator, like for optimal Schwarz methods. We illustrate our analysis with numerical experiments

Essential spectrum of local multi-trace boundary integral operators

Considering pure transmission scattering problems in piecewise constant media, we derive an exact analytic formula for the spectrum of the corresponding local multi-trace boundary integral operators in the case where the geometrical configuration does not involve any junction point and all wave numbers equal. We deduce from this the essential spectrum in the case where wave numbers vary. Numerical evidences of these theoretical results are also presented

Multitrace formulations and Dirichlet-Neumann algorithms

Multitrace formulations (MTF) for boundary integral equations (BIE) were developed over the last few years in [1, 2, 4] for the simulation of electromagnetic problems in piecewise constant media, see also [3] for associated boundary integral methods. The MTFs are naturally adapted to the developments of new block preconditioners, as indicated in [5], but very little is known so far about such associated iterative solvers. The goal of our presentation is to give an elementary introduction to MTFs, and also to establish a natural connection with the more classical Dirichlet-Neumann algorithms that are well understood in the domain decomposition literature, see for example [6, 7]. We present for a model problem a convergence analysis for a naturally arising block iterative method associated with the MTF, and also first numerical results to illustrate what performance one can expect from such an iterative solver

Domain decomposition for boundary integral equations via local multi-trace formulations

Abstract We review the ideas behind and the construction of so-called local multitrace boundary integral equations for second-order boundary value problems with piecewise constant coefficients. These formulations have received considerable attention recently as a promising domain-decomposition approach to boundary element methods