Inverse scattering for an exterior Dirichlet problem

Abstract

Scattering caused by a metallic cylinder in the field of a wire carrying a periodic current is studied, with a view to determining the location and shape of the cylinder in light of far field measurements between the cylinder and the wire. The associated direct problem is the exterior Dirichlet problem for the Helmholtz equation in two dimensions, and an improved low frequency estimate for its solution by integral equation methods is shown by inverse scattering calculations to be accurate to this estimate. The far field measurements are related to low frequency boundary integral equations whose solutions may be expressed in terms of a mapping function for the exterior of the unknown curve onto the exterior of a unit disk. The conformal transformation's Laurent expansion coefficients can be related to those of the far field, the first of which leads to the calculation of the distance between the source and the cylinder, while the other coefficients are determined by placing the source in a different location.