Christiaan C. Stolk

Christiaan C. Stolk

A new domain decomposition method is introduced for the heterogeneous 2-D and 3-D Helmholtz equations. Transmission conditions based on the perfectly matched layer (PML) are derived that avoid artificial reflections and match incoming and outgoing waves at the subdomain interfaces. We focus on a subdivision of the rectangular domain into many thin subdomains along one of the axes, in combination with a certain ordering for solving the subdomain problems and a GMRES outer iteration. When combined with multifrontal methods, the solver has near-linear cost in examples, due to very small iteration numbers that are essentially independent of problem size and number of subdomains. It is to our knowledge only the second method with this property next to the moving PML sweeping method.

Christiaan C. Stolk

We develop a new dispersion minimizing compact finite difference scheme for the Helmholtz equation in 2 and 3 dimensions. The scheme is based on a newly developed ray theory for difference equations. A discrete Helmholtz operator and a discrete operator to be applied to the source and the wavefields are constructed. Their coefficients are piecewise polynomial functions of $hk$, chosen such that phase and amplitude errors are minimal. The phase errors of the scheme are very small, approximately as small as those of the 2-D quasi-stabilized FEM method and substantially smaller than those of alternatives in 3-D, assuming the same number of gridpoints per wavelength is used. In numerical experiments, accurate solutions are obtained in constant and smoothly varying media using meshes with only five to six points per wavelength and wave propagation over hundreds of wavelengths. When used as a coarse level discretization in a multigrid method the scheme can even be used with downto three points per wavelength. Tests on 3-D examples with up to $10^8$ degrees of freedom show that with a recently developed hybrid solver, the use of coarser meshes can lead to corresponding savings in computation time, resulting in good simulation times compared to the literature.

Christiaan C. Stolk, Alessandro Sbrizzi

Magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) is able to estimate multiple quantitative tissue parameters from a relatively short acquisition. The main characteristic of an MRF sequence is the simultaneous application of (a) transient states excitation and (b) highly undersampled $k$-space. Despite the promising empirical results obtained with MRF, no work has appeared that formally describes the combined impact of these two aspects on the reconstruction accuracy. In this paper, a mathematical model is derived that directly relates the time varying RF excitation and the $k$-space sampling to the spatially dependent reconstruction errors. A subsequent in-depth analysis identifies the mechanisms by which MRF sequence properties affect accuracy, providing a formal explanation of several empirically observed or intuitively understood facts. New insights are obtained which show how this analytical framework could be used to improve the MRF protocol.

Christiaan C. Stolk

We present a preconditioning method for the multi-dimensional Helmholtz equation with smoothly varying coefficient. The method is based on a frame of functions, that approximately separates components associated with different singular values of the operator. For the small singular values, corresponding to propagating waves, the frame functions are constructed using ray theory. A series of 2-D numerical experiments demonstrates that the number of iterations required for convergence is small and independent of the frequency. In this sense the method is optimal.

Christiaan C. Stolk

In this paper we generalize and improve a recently developed domain decomposition preconditioner for the iterative solution of discretized Helmholtz equations. We introduce an improved method for transmission at the internal boundaries using perfectly matched layers. Simultaneous forward and backward sweeps are introduced, thereby improving the possibilities for parallellization. Finally, the method is combined with an outer two-grid iteration. The method is studied theoretically and with numerical examples. It is shown that the modifications lead to substantial decreases in computation time and memory use, so that computation times become comparable to that of the fastests methods currently in the literature for problems with up to 10^8 degrees of freedom.