Static surface mode expansion for the full-wave scattering from penetrable objects

Abstract: We introduce the longitudinal and transverse static surface modes and use them to solve the full-wave electromagnetic scattering problem from penetrable objects. The longitudinal static modes are the eigenmodes with zero surface curl of the electrostatic integral operator that gives the tangential component of the electric field, as a function of the surface charge density. The transverse static modes are the eigenmodes with zero surface divergence of the magnetostatic integral operator that returns the tangential component of the vector potential, as a function of the surface current distribution. The static modes only depend on the shape of the object, thus, the same static basis can be used regardless of the frequency of operation and of the material constituting the object. We expand the unknown surface currents of the Poggio-Miller-Chang-Harrington-Wu-Tsai surface integral equations in terms of the static surface modes and solve them using the Galerkin-projection scheme. The static modes expansion allows the regularization of the singular integral operators and yields a drastic reduction of the number of unknowns compared to a discretization based on sub-domain basis functions. The introduced expansion significantly reduces the cpu-time required for the numerical solution of the scattering problem from particle arrays.