Dirichlet-to-Neumann boundary conditions for multiple scattering problems

A Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) condition is derived for the numerical solution of time-harmonic multiple scattering problems, where the scatterer consists of several disjoint components. It is obtained by combining contributions from multiple purely outgoing wave fields. The DtN condition yields an exact non-reflecting boundary condition for the situation, where the computational domain and its exterior artificial boundary consist of several disjoint components. Because each sub-scatterer can be enclosed by a separate artificial boundary, the computational effort is greatly reduced and becomes independent of the relative distances between the different sub-domains. The DtN condition naturally fits into a variational formulation of the boundary-value problem for use with the finite element method. Moreover, it immediately yields as a by-product an exact formula for the far-field pattern of the scattered field. Numerical examples show that the DtN condition for multiple scattering is as accurate as the well-known DtN condition for single scattering problems [J. Comput. Phys. 82 (1989) 172; Numerical Methods for Problems in Infinite Domains, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1992], while being more efficient due to the reduced size of the computational domain.