A new integral equation method for direct electromagnetic scattering in homogeneous media and its numerical confirmation

In this paper, we derive a new integral equation method for direct electromagnetic scattering in homogeneous media and present a numerical confirmation of the new method via a computer simulation. The new integral equation method is based on a paper written by DeSanto [1], originally for scattering from an infinite rough surface separating homogeneous dielectric half-spaces. Here, it is applied to a bounded scatterer, which can be an ohmic conductor or a dielectric, with some simplification of the continuity conditions for the fields. The new integral equation method is developed by choosing the electric field and its normal derivative as boundary unknowns, which are not the usual boundary unknowns. The new integral equation method may provide significant computational advantages over the standard Stratton–Chu method [2] because it leads to a 50% sparse, rather than 100% dense, impedance (collocation) matrix. Our theoretical development of the new integral equation method is exact.