Boundary integral approximation of a heat-diffusion problem in time-harmonic regime

In this paper we propose and analyse numerical methods for the approximation of the solution of Helmholtz transmission problems in the half plane. The problems we deal with arise from the study of some models in photothermal science. The solutions to the problem are represented as single layer potentials and an equivalent system of boundary integral equations is derived. We then give abstract necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence of Petrov–Galerkin discretizations of the boundary integral system and show for three different cases that these conditions are satisfied. We extend the results to other situations not related to thermal science and to non-smooth interfaces. Finally, we propose a simple full discretization of a Petrov–Galerkin scheme with periodic spline spaces and show some numerical experiments.