Fundamentals of a Null Field Method-Surface Equivalence Principle Approach for Scattering by Dielectric Cylinders

Abstract: The null-field method (NFM) and the method of auxiliary sources (MAS) have been both used extensively for the numerical solution of boundary-value problems arising in diverse applications involving propagation and scattering of waves. It has been shown that, under certain conditions, the applicability of MAS may be restricted by issues concerning the divergence of the auxiliary currents, manifested by the appearance of exponentially large oscillations. In this work, we combine the NFM with the surface equivalence principle (SEP) and investigate analytically the convergence properties of the combined NFM-SEP with reference to the problem of (internal or external) line-source excitation of a dielectric cylinder. Our main purpose is to prove that (contrary to the MAS) the discrete NFM-SEP currents, when properly normalized, always converge to the corresponding continuous current densities, and thus no divergence and oscillations phenomena appear. The theoretical analysis of the NFM-SEP is accompanied by detailed comparisons with the MAS as well as with representative numerical results illustrating the conclusions.