Two efficient methods for solving Schlömilch’s integral equation

Abstract

PurposeIn this paper, the exact solutions of the Schlömilch’s integral equation and its linear and non-linear generalized formulas with application are solved by using two efficient iterative methods. The Schlömilch’s integral equations have many applications in atmospheric, terrestrial physics and ionospheric problems. They describe the density profile of electrons from the ionospheric for awry occurrence of the quasi-transverse approximations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the authors apply a regularization method combined with the standard homotopy analysis method to find the exact solutions for all forms of the Schlömilch’s integral equation. Second, the authors implement the regularization method with the variational iteration method for the same purpose. The effectiveness of the regularization-Homotopy method and the regularization-variational method is shown by using them for several illustrative examples, which have been solved by other authors using the so-called regularization-Adomian method.FindingsThe implementation of the two methods demonstrates the usefulness in finding exact solutions.Practical implicationsThe authors have applied the developed methodology to the solution of the Rayleigh equation, which is an important equation in fluid dynamics and has a variety of applications in different fields of science and engineering. These include the analysis of batch distillation in chemistry, scattering of electromagnetic waves in physics, isotopic data in contaminant hydrogeology and others.Originality/valueIn this paper, two reliable methods have been implemented to solve several examples, where those examples represent the main types of the Schlömilch’s integral models. Each method has been accompanied with the use of the regularization method. This process constructs an efficient dealing to get the exact solutions of the linear and non-linear Schlömilch’s integral equation which is easy to implement. In addition to that, the accompanied regularization method with each of the two used methods proved its efficiency in handling many problems especially ill-posed problems, such as the Fredholm integral equation of the first kind.