Learning dominant wave directions for plane wave methods for high-frequency Helmholtz equations

Abstract

We present a ray-based finite element method for the high-frequency Helmholtz equation in smooth media, whose basis is learned adaptively from the medium and source. The method requires a fixed number of grid points per wavelength to represent the wave field; moreover, it achieves an asymptotic convergence rate of O(ω-12), where ω is the frequency parameter in the Helmholtz equation. The local basis is motivated by the geometric optics ansatz and is composed of polynomials modulated by plane waves propagating in a few dominant ray directions. The ray directions are learned by processing a low-frequency wave field that probes the medium with the same source. Once the local ray directions are extracted, they are incorporated into the local basis to solve the high-frequency Helmholtz equation. This process can be continued to further improve the approximations for both local ray directions and high-frequency wave fields iteratively. Finally, a fast solver is developed for solving the resulting linear system with an empirical complexity O(ωd) up to a poly-logarithmic factor. Numerical examples in 2D are presented to corroborate the claims.