Electromagnetic volume scattering in the half-space: a moment-method analysis without Sommerfeld integrals or their approximations

Abstract

Traditionally, in moment-method analyses of electromagnetic scattering, the elements of the impedance matrix are calculated as convolutions of the basis elements with the appropriate dyadic Green's function. However, for scattering in the half-space, the vertical and azimuthal copolar terms of the Green's function require evaluation of Sommerfeld integrals which are computationally burdensome. In this paper, it is shown that, in populating the impedance matrix for the half-space problem, evaluation of Sommerfeld integrals is, in fact, not necessary. For monochromatic excitation, the plane-wave expansion of the scattered field constitutes a Fourier transform, in the horizontal plane, of a vector spectral function. This vector function results from the convolution, in the vertical dimension, of the respective angular spectra of the Green's function and the equivalent current. On application of the moment method, through the Weyl identity, the impedance-matrix elements corresponding to the singular terms of the Green's function are convolutions in the horizontal plane of spherical potentials, and Fourier transforms of scalar spectral functions. These scalar functions are derived from the basis elements and, with a judicious choice of basis, they are well behaved and of compact support, and consequently their Fourier transforms can be computed as FFTs.