A fast multipole method for Maxwell equations stable at all frequencies.

Abstract

The solution of Helmholtz and Maxwell equations by integral formulations (kernel in exp(i kr)/r) leads to large dense linear systems. Using direct solvers requires large computational costs in O(N(3)). Using iterative solvers, the computational cost is reduced to large matrix-vector products. The fast multipole method provides a fast numerical way to compute convolution integrals. Its application to Maxwell and Helmholtz equations was initiated by Rokhlin, based on a multipole expansion of the interaction kernel. A second version, proposed by Chew, is based on a plane-wave expansion of the kernel. We propose a third approach, the stable-plane-wave expansion, which has a lower computational expense than the multipole expansion and does not have the accuracy and stability problems of the plane-wave expansion. The computational complexity is Nlog N as with the other methods.