Numerical quadratures for singular and hypersingular integrals

Abstract

We present a procedure for the design of high-order quadrature rules for the numerical evaluation of singular and hypersingular integrals; such integrals are frequently encountered in solution of integral equations of potential theory in two dimensions. Unlike integrals of both smooth and weakly singular functions, hypersingular integrals are pseudo-differential operators, being limits of certain integrals; as a result, standard quadrature formulae fail for hypersingular integrals. On the other hand, such expressions are often encountered in mathematical physics (see, for example, [1]), and it is desirable to have simple and efficient “quadrature” formulae for them. The algorithm we present constructs high-order “quadratures” for the evaluation of hypersingular integrals. The additional advantage of the scheme is the fact that each of the quadratures it produces can be used simultaneously for the efficient evaluation of hypersingular integrals, Hilbert transforms, and integrals involving both smooth and logarithmically singular functions; this results in significantly simplified implementations. The performance of the procedure is illustrated with several numerical examples.