“…Such a problem arises in many physical applications, and various numerical techniques have been developed for its approximate solution particularly for the case in which ω 2 , the wave number, is a constant. Recently, high order (i.e., order three or four) compact finite difference methods have been developed for the solution of (1.1) with Dirichlet boundary conditions and a vertical interface at x = x ℓ , which we call Γ ℓ , such that In the derivation of these methods, special attention is devoted to the approximation of the interface conditions since, even though u and u x may be continuous across this interface, that is, where the second or higher order partial derivatives with respect to x and the source function f ( x , y ) may be discontinuous across the interface; see, for example, [2, 3]. Moreover, frequently only Dirichlet boundary conditions are considered avoiding the added complication of deriving high‐order approximations to Neumann boundary conditions.…”