The method of layer potentials for electromagnetic waves in chiral media (Q2716426)

This paper is concerned with the study of Drude-Born-Fedorov system governing the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a chiral medium, i.e., the one which responds with both magnetic and electric polarization to electric or magnetic excitation. The study aims at extending the existing work for the case of dielectric scatterer so that it also covers the case of a chiral scatterer. Thus, the emphasis is on domains with irregular boundaries as well as on discontinuous boundary data. Relevant for the problem under discussion, some integral operators are introduced and their main properties are reviewed. Details are given on the connection between the Beltrami fields and Maxwell's equations. The BVP to be solved is translated in terms of Beltrami fields; unlike the original system, the BVPs are decoupled inside the domain but coupled on the boundary. Integral equation methods are employed to study the well posedness of the direct problem for rough scatterers. It is a well-written paper which should be of interest to anyone working on electromagnetic scattering.