Revisiting the Low-Frequency Dipolar Perturbation by an Impenetrable Ellipsoid in a Conductive Surrounding

Abstract

This contribution deals with the scattering by a metallic ellipsoidal target, embedded in a homogeneous conductive medium, which is stimulated when a 3D time-harmonic magnetic dipole is operating at the low-frequency realm. The incident, the scattered, and the total three-dimensional electromagnetic fields, which satisfy Maxwell’s equations, yield low-frequency expansions in terms of positive integral powers of the complex-valued wave number of the exterior medium. We preserve the static Rayleigh approximation and the first three dynamic terms, while the additional terms of minor contribution are neglected. The Maxwell-type problem is transformed into intertwined potential-type boundary value problems with impenetrable boundary conditions, whereas the environment of a genuine ellipsoidal coordinate system provides the necessary setting for tackling such problems in anisotropic space. The fields are represented via nonaxisymmetric infinite series expansions in terms of harmonic eigenfunctions, affiliated with the ellipsoidal system, obtaining analytical closed-form solutions in a compact fashion. Until nowadays, such problems were attacked by using the very few ellipsoidal harmonics exhibiting an analytical form. In the present article, we address this issue by incorporating the full series expansion of the potentials and utilizing the entire subspace of ellipsoidal harmonic eigenfunctions.