Calderon-preconditioned boundary integral equations of the Burton-Miller type for transmission problems

This paper proposes well-conditioned boundary integral equations based on the Burton-Miller method for solving transmission problems. The Burton-Miller method is widely accepted as a highly accurate numerical method based on the boundary integral equation for solving exterior wave problems. While this method can also be applied to solve the transmission problems, a straightforward formulation may yield ill-conditioned integral equations. Consequently, the resulting linear algebraic equations may involve a coefficient matrix with a huge condition number, leading to poor convergence of Krylov-based linear solvers. To address this challenge, our study enhances Burton-Miller-type boundary integral equations tailored for transmission problems by exploiting the Calderon formula. In cases where a single material exists in an unbounded host medium, we demonstrate the formulation of the boundary integral equation such that the underlying integral operator ${\cal A}$ is spectrally well-conditioned. Specifically, ${\cal A}$ can be designed in a simple manner that ensures ${\cal A}^2$ is bounded and has only a single eigenvalue accumulation point. Furthermore, we extend our analysis to the multi-material case, proving that the square of the proposed operator has only a few eigenvalues except for a compact perturbation. Through numerical examples of several benchmark problems, we illustrate that our formulation reduces the iteration number required by iterative linear solvers, even in the presence of material junction points; locations where three or more sub-domains meet on the boundary.