Geometric series expansion of the Neumann–Poincaré operator: Application to composite materials

Abstract

The Neumann-Poincare operator, a singular integral operator on the boundary of a domain, naturally appears when one solves a conductivity transmission problem via the boundary integral formulation. Recently, a series expression of the Neumann-Poincare operator was developed in two dimensions based on geometric function theory. In this paper, we investigate geometric properties of composite materials by using this series expansion. In particular, we obtain explicit formulas for the polarization tensor and the effective conductivity for an inclusion or a periodic array of inclusions of arbitrary shape with extremal conductivity, in terms of the associated exterior conformal mapping. Also, we observe by numerical computations that the spectrum of the Neumann--Poincare operator has a monotonic behavior with respect to the shape deformation of the inclusion. Additionally, we derive inequality relations of the coefficients of the Riemann mapping of an arbitrary Lipschitz domain by using the properties of the polarization tensor corresponding to the domain.