The Trefftz method for solving eigenvalue problems

For Laplace's eigenvalue problems, this paper presents new algorithms of the Trefftz method (i.e. the boundary approximation method), which solve the Helmholtz equation and then use an iteration process to yield approximate eigenvalues and eigenfunctions. The new iterative method has superlinear convergence rates and gives a better performance in numerical testing, compared with the other popular methods of rootfinding. Moreover, piecewise particular solutions are used for a basic model of eigenvalue problems on the unit square with the Dirichlet condition. Numerical experiments are also conducted for the eigenvalue problems with singularities. Our new algorithms using piecewise particular solutions are well suited to seek very accurate solutions of eigenvalue problems, in particular those with multiple singularities, interfaces and those on unbounded domains. Using piecewise particular solutions has also the advantage to solve complicated problems because uniform particular solutions may not always exist for the entire solution domain. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.