8.—Constructive Methods for Solving the Exterior Neumann Problem for the Reduced Wave Equation in a Spherically Symmetric Medium

Abstract

An integral operator is constructed which maps solutions of the reduced wave equation defined in exterior domains onto solutions of ∆n u+λ2(l+B(r))u = 0 (*) defined in exterior domains, where B(r) is a continuously differentiable function of compact support. This operator is then used to construct a solution to the exterior Neumann problem for (*) satisfying the Sommerfeld radiation condition at infinity. Such problems arise in connection with the scattering of acoustic waves in a non-homogeneous medium, and this paper gives a method for solving these problems which is suitable for analytic and numerical approximations.