Shape derivatives of boundary integral operators in electromagnetic scattering

Abstract: We develop the shape derivative analysis of solutions to the problem of scattering of time-harmonic electromagnetic waves by a bounded penetrable obstacle. Since boundary integral equations are a classical tool to solve electromagnetic scattering problems, we study the shape differentiability properties of the standard electromagnetic boundary integral operators. Using Helmholtz decomposition, we can base their analysis on the study of scalar integral operators in standard Sobolev spaces, but we then have to study the G^ateaux differentiability of surface differential operators. We prove that the electromagnetic boundary integral operators are infinitely differentiable without loss of regularity and that the solutions of the scattering problem are infinitely shape differentiable away from the boundary of the obstacle, whereas their derivatives lose regularity on the boundary. We also give a characterization of the first shape derivative as a solution of a new electromagnetic scattering problem.