The discretisation of boundary integral equations for the scalar Helmholtz equation leads to large dense linear systems. Efficient boundary element methods (BEM), such as the fast multipole method (FMM) and $\Hmat$ based methods, focus on structured low-rank approximations of subblocks in these systems. It is known that the ranks of these subblocks increase linearly with the wavenumber. We explore a data-sparse representation of BEM-matrices valid for a range of frequencies, based on extracting the known phase of the Green's function. Algebraically, this leads to a Hadamard product of a frequency matrix with an $\Hmat$. We show that the frequency dependency of this $\Hmat$ can be determined using a small number of frequency samples, even for geometrically complex three-dimensional scattering obstacles. We describe an efficient construction of the representation by combining adaptive cross approximation with adaptive rational approximation in the continuous frequency dimension. We show that our data-sparse representation allows to efficiently sample the full BEM-matrix at any given frequency, and as such it may be useful as part of an efficient sweeping routine.
Approximate solutions to elliptic partial differential equations with known kernel can be obtained via the boundary element method (BEM) by discretizing the corresponding boundary integral operators and solving the resulting linear system of algebraic equations. Due to the presence of singular and hypersingular integrals, the evaluation of the operator matrix entries requires the use of regularization techniques. In this work, the singular and hypersingular integrals associated with first-order Galerkin discrete boundary operators for the two-dimensional Helmholtz equation are reduced to quasi…
An Isogeometric Boundary Element Method (IgA-BEM) is considered for the numerical solution of Helmholtz problems on 3D bounded or unbounded domains, admitting a smooth conformal multi-patch representation of their finite boundary surface. The discretization space is formed by $C^0$ inter-patch continuous basis functions whose restriction to a patch simplifies to the span of tensor product B-splines composed with the given patch parameterization. For both regular and singular integration, the proposed model utilizes a numerical procedure defined on the support of each trial B-spline function, w…
An overlapped continuous model framework, for the Helmholtz wave propagation problem in unbounded regions comprising bounded heterogeneous media, was recently introduced and analyzed by the authors ({\tt J. Comput. Phys., {\bf 403}, 109052, 2020}). The continuous Helmholtz system incorporates a radiation condition (RC) and our equivalent hybrid framework facilitates application of widely used finite element methods (FEM) and boundary element methods (BEM), and the resulting discrete systems retain the RC exactly. The FEM and BEM discretizations, respectively, applied to the designed interior h…
The finite element method (FEM) and the boundary element method (BEM) can numerically solve the Helmholtz system for acoustic wave propagation. When an object with heterogeneous wave speed or density is embedded in an unbounded exterior medium, the coupled FEM-BEM algorithm promises to combine the strengths of each technique. The FEM handles the heterogeneous regions while the BEM models the homogeneous exterior. Even though standard FEM-BEM algorithms are effective, they do require stabilisation at resonance frequencies. One such approach is to add a regularisation term to the system of equat…
This paper presents a shape optimisation system to design the shape of an acoustically-hard object in the three-dimensional open space. Boundary element method (BEM) is suitable to analyse such an exterior field. However, the conventional BEM, which is based on piecewise polynomial shape and interpolation functions, can require many design variables because they are usually chosen as a part of the nodes of the underlying boundary element mesh. In addition, it is not easy for the conventional method to compute the gradient of the sound pressure on the surface, which is necessary to compute the …
In $d$ dimensions, accurately approximating an arbitrary function oscillating with frequency $\lesssim k$ requires $\sim k^d$ degrees of freedom. A numerical method for solving the Helmholtz equation (with wavenumber $k$ and in $d$ dimensions) suffers from the pollution effect if, as $k\to\infty$, the total number of degrees of freedom needed to maintain accuracy grows faster than this natural threshold (i.e., faster than $k^d$ for domain-based formulations, such as finite element methods, and $k^{d-1}$ for boundary-based formulations, such as boundary element methods). It is well known that t…
In the present work, we consider weakly-singular integral equations arising from linear second-order strongly-elliptic PDE systems with constant coefficients, including, e.g., linear elasticity. We introduce a general framework for optimal convergence of adaptive Galerkin BEM. We identify certain abstract properties for the underlying meshes, the corresponding mesh-refinement strategy, and the ansatz spaces that guarantee convergence at optimal algebraic rate of an adaptive algorithm driven by the weighted-residual error. These properties are satisfied, e.g., for discontinuous piecewise polyno…
The boundary element method (BEM) is an efficient numerical method for simulating harmonic wave propagation. It uses boundary integral formulations of the Helmholtz equation at the interfaces of piecewise homogeneous domains. The discretisation of its weak formulation leads to a dense system of linear equations, which is typically solved with an iterative linear method such as GMRES. The application of BEM to simulating wave propagation through large-scale geometries is only feasible when compression and preconditioning techniques reduce the computational footprint. Furthermore, many different…
The famous scientist Hermann von Helmholtz was born 200 years ago. Many complex physical wave phenomena in engineering can effectively be described using one or a set of equations named after him: the Helmholtz equation. Although this has been known for a long time from a theoretical point of view, the actual numerical implementation has often been hindered by divergence free and/or curl free constraints. There is further a need for a numerical method that is accurate, reliable and takes into account radiation conditions at infinity. The classical boundary element method (BEM) satisfies the la…
We solve first-kind Fredholm boundary integral equations arising from Helmholtz and Laplace problems on bounded, smooth screens in three-dimensions with either Dirichlet or Neumann conditions. The proposed Galerkin-Bubnov method takes as discretization elements pushed-forward weighted azimuthal projections of standard spherical harmonics onto the canonical disk. We show that these bases allow for spectral convergence and provide fully discrete error analysis. Numerical experiments support our claims, with results comparable to Nyström-type and $hp$-methods.
We present a fast spectral Galerkin scheme for the discretization of boundary integral equations arising from two-dimensional Helmholtz transmission problems in multi-layered periodic structures or gratings. Employing suitably parametrized Fourier basis and excluding Rayleigh-Wood anomalies, we rigorously establish the well-posedness of both continuous and discrete problems, and prove super-algebraic error convergence rates for the proposed scheme. Through several numerical examples, we confirm our findings and show performances competitive to those attained via Nyström methods.
In this paper, we perform a rigourous version of shape and topological derivatives for optimizations problems under constraint Helmoltz problems. A shape and topological optimization problem is formulated by introducing cost functional. We derive first by considering the lagradian method the shape derivative of the functional. It is also proven a topological derivative with the same approach. An application to several unconstrained shape functions arising from differential geometry are also given.
This paper gives an analysis and an evaluation of linear algebra operations on Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) with complex number arithmetics with double precision. Knowing the performance of these operations, iterative Krylov methods are considered to solve the acoustic problem efficiently. Numerical experiments carried out on a set of acoustic matrices arising from the modelisation of acoustic phenomena within a cylinder and a car compartment are exposed, exhibiting the performance, robustness and efficiency of our algorithms, with a ratio up to 27x for dot product, 10x for sparse matrix-vec…
A method for the analytical evaluation of layer potentials arising in the collocation boundary element method for the Laplace and Helmholtz equation is developed for piecewise flat boundary elements with polynomial shape functions. The method is based on dimension-reduction via the divergence theorem and a Recursive scheme for evaluating the resulting line Integrals for Polynomial Elements (RIPE). It is used to evaluate single layer, double layer, adjoint double layer, and hypersingular potentials, for both the Laplace and the Helmholtz kernels. It naturally supports nearly singular, singular,…
For the Helmholtz equation posed in the exterior of a Dirichlet obstacle, we prove that if there exists a family of quasimodes (as is the case when the exterior of the obstacle has stable trapped rays), then there exist near-zero eigenvalues of the standard variational formulation of the exterior Dirichlet problem (recall that this formulation involves truncating the exterior domain and applying the exterior Dirichlet-to-Neumann map on the truncation boundary). Our motivation for proving this result is that a) the finite-element method for computing approximations to solutions of the Helmholtz…
Solving time-harmonic wave propagation problems in the frequency domain and within heterogeneous media brings many mathematical and computational challenges, especially in the high frequency regime. We will focus here on computational challenges and try to identify the best algorithm and numerical strategy for a few well-known benchmark cases arising in applications. The aim is to cover, through numerical experimentation and consideration of the best implementation strategies, the main two-level domain decomposition methods developed in recent years for the Helmholtz equation. The theory for t…
We discuss a quartic eigenvalue problem arising in the context of an optical waveguiding problem involving atomically thick 2D materials. The waveguide configuration we consider consists of a gradient-index (spatially dependent) dielectric equipped with conducting interior interfaces. This leads to a quartic eigenvalue problem with mixed transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes, and strongly coupled electric and magnetic fields. We derive a weak formulation of the quartic eigenvalue problem and introduce a numerical solver based on a quadratification approach in which the quartic eige…
In this paper, a fast multipole method (FMM) is proposed to compute long-range interactions of wave sources embedded in 3-D layered media. The layered media Green's function for the Helmholtz equation, which satisfies the transmission conditions at material interfaces, is decomposed into a free space component and four types of reaction field components arising from wave reflections and transmissions through the layered media. The proposed algorithm is a combination of the classic FMM for the free space component and FMMs specifically designed for the four types reaction components, made possi…
We analyse parallel overlapping Schwarz domain decomposition methods for the Helmholtz equation, where the subdomain problems satisfy first-order absorbing (impedance) transmission conditions, and exchange of information between subdomains is achieved using a partition of unity. We provide a novel analysis of this method at the PDE level (without discretization). First, we formulate the method as a fixed point iteration, and show (in dimensions 1,2,3) that it is well-defined in a tensor product of appropriate local function spaces, each with $L^2$ impedance boundary data. Given this, we then o…
The scattering and transmission of harmonic acoustic waves at a penetrable material are commonly modelled by a set of Helmholtz equations. This system of partial differential equations can be rewritten into boundary integral equations defined at the surface of the objects and solved with the boundary element method (BEM). High frequencies or geometrical details require a fine surface mesh, which increases the number of degrees of freedom in the weak formulation. Then, matrix compression techniques need to be combined with iterative linear solvers to limit the computational footprint. Moreover,…