The Modeling of Singularities in the Finite-Difference Approximation of the Time-Domain Electromagnetic-Field Equations

When the electromagnetic-field equations are solved in a region with a corner, singularities in the field or in its spatial derivatives will be present at these corners. These singularities cause the load truncation error in a finite-difference approximation of the field equations to be unbounded. In this paper it is shown that failing to take these singularities into account leads to large errors in the finite-difference solution of the time-domain electromagnetic-field equations. A simple method is described to account for these singularities while retaining the simplicity of the finite-difference formulation. Numerical results are given that demonstrate the accuracy obtained when our technique is used.