# Interaction of Light with Arbitrarily Shaped Dielectric Media: Compactness and Robustness in Electromagnetic Scattering

Monday, April 12, 2010 -
4:00pm to 6:00pm
The scattering of electromagnetic waves by homogeneous dielectric media is characterized by a strongly singular integral equation, corresponding to the identity operator perturbed by a non-compact Green operator. Using the Kondrachov-Rellich compact imbedding and the Calderon-Zygmund theory, we prove that the Green operator is polynomially compact if the dielectric boundary is a compact smooth manifold. We then show that the electromagnetic scattering problem admits a robust solution for all non-accretive media ($\mathrm{Im}\chi\leq0$) satisfying certain geometric and topological constraints, except for the critical point $\chi=-2$, where unbounded electromagnetic enhancement may occur. Combining the polynomial compactness of the Green operator with the Arendt-Batty-Lyubich-Vu theorem in semigroup theory, we devise a non-perturbative approach to the solution of electromagnetic scattering problem, as an improvement of the Born approximation.This work was part of the speaker's PhD thesis project completed at Harvard University.
Speaker:
Yajun Zhou
Princeton University
Event Location:
Fine Hall 110