Conforming Testing of Electromagnetic Surface-Integral Equations for Penetrable Objects

The necessity of conforming testing procedures in developing accurate and reliable surface-integral-equation-based solvers for homogeneous penetrable objects is demonstrated. It is shown that only in Poggio-Miller-Chang-Harrington-Wu-Tsai (PMCHWT) formulation with a conforming testing procedure, the interface conditions become properly tested for both the tangential and normal field components. Numerical experiments illustrate that the use of a nonconforming testing procedure can lead to a significant decrease on the solution accuracy or erroneous diverging results.