On the spectrum of the electric field integral equation and the convergence of the moment method

Abstract

Existing convergence estimates for numerical scattering methods based on boundary integral equations are asymptotic in the limit of vanishing discretization length, and break down as the electrical size of the problem grows. In order to analyse the efficiency and accuracy of numerical methods for the large scattering problems of interest in computational electromagnetics, we study the spectrum of the electric field integral equation (EFIE) for an infinite, conducting strip for both the TM (weakly singular kernel) and TE polarizations (hypersingular kernel). Due to the self‐coupling of surface wave modes, the condition number of the discretized integral equation increases as the square root of the electrical size of the strip for both polarizations. From the spectrum of the EFIE, the solution error introduced by discretization of the integral equation can also be estimated. Away from the edge singularities of the solution, the error is second order in the discretization length for low‐order bases with exact integration of matrix elements, and is first order if an approximate quadrature rule is employed. Comparison with numerical results demonstrates the validity of these condition number and solution error estimates. The spectral theory offers insights into the behaviour of numerical methods commonly observed in computational electromagnetics. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.