Orthogonality Properties of Characteristic Modes for Lossy Structures

Orthogonality of the characteristic modes with respect to the weight operator of the generalized eigenvalue equation (GEE), and in the far-field, is investigated in the case of lossy conducting and dielectric objects. Linking the weight operator to radiated power is shown to provide orthogonal far fields in the lossless case. In the lossy case, both the orthogonality of the characteristic far fields and the weight operator orthogonality of the modal currents are satisfied with respect to the Hermitian inner products only for sufficiently symmetric geometries, such as a sphere. For irregular lossy shapes, independent of the symmetry of the formulation, the far-field orthogonality can be obtained only with respect to the symmetric (non-Hermitian) product. The weight operator orthogonality can be satisfied with (complex) symmetric formulations, but again only with respect to the symmetric product. Since the symmetric products are not related to any physical power quantity, the modes do not form a (radiated) power orthogonal set in the lossy case. Hence, for lossy structures, characteristic modes (CMs) do not satisfy their classical definition and they need to be redefined.