Far field patterns and the inverse scattering problem for electromagnetic waves in an inhomogeneous medium

Abstract

AbstractWe consider the scattering of time harmonic electromagnetic waves by an inhomogeneous medium of compact support. It is first shown that the set of far field patterns of the electric fields corresponding to incident plane waves propagating in arbitrary directions is complete in the space of square-integrable tangential vector fields defined on the unit sphere. We then show that under certain conditions the electric far field patterns satisfy an integral identity involving the unique solution of a new class of boundary value problems for Maxwell's equations called the interior transmission problem for electromagnetic waves. Finally, it is indicated how this integral identity can be used to formulate an optimization scheme yielding an optimal solution of the inverse scattering problem for electromagnetic waves.