Low‐frequency dipolar electromagnetic scattering by a solid ellipsoid in lossless environment

Abstract

AbstractElectromagnetic wave scattering phenomena for target identification are important in many applications related to fundamental science and engineering. Here, we present an analytical formulation for the calculation of the magnetic and electric fields that scatter off a highly conductive ellipsoidal body, located within an otherwise homogeneous and isotropic lossless medium. The primary excitation source assumes a time‐harmonic magnetic dipole, precisely fixed and arbitrarily orientated that operates at low frequencies and produces the incident fields. The scattering problem itself is modeled with respect to rigorous expansions of the electromagnetic fields at the low‐frequency regime in terms of positive integral powers of the real wave number of the ambient. Obviously, the Rayleigh static term and a few dynamic terms are sufficient for the purpose of the present work, as the additional terms are neglected due to their minor contribution. Therein, the classical Maxwell's theory is suitably modified, leading to intertwined either Laplace's or Poisson's equations, accompanied by the impenetrable boundary conditions for the total fields and the limiting behavior at infinity. On the other hand, the complete spatial anisotropy of the three‐dimensional space is secured via the introduction of the genuine ellipsoidal coordinate system, being appropriate for tackling incrementally such scattering boundary value problems. The nonaxisymmetric fields are obtained via infinite series expansions in terms of ellipsoidal harmonic eigenfunctions, providing handy closed‐form solutions in a compact fashion, whose validity is verified by a straightforward reduction to simpler geometries of the metal object. The main idea is to demonstrate an efficient methodology, according to which the constructed analytical formulae can offer the appropriate environment for a fast numerical estimation of the scattered electromagnetic fields that could be useful for real data inversion.