Accuracy of the method of moments for scattering by a cylinder

We study the accuracy and convergence of the method of moments for numerica l scattering computations for an important benchmark geometry: the infinite circular cylinder. From the spectral decomposition of the electric-field i ntegral equation for this scatterer, we determine the condition number of t he moment matrix and the dependence of solution error on the choice of basi s functions, discretization density, polarization of the incident field, an d the numerical quadrature rule used to evaluate moment-matrix elements. Th e analysis is carried out for both the TM polarization (weakly singular ker nel) and TE polarization (hypersingular kernel). These results provide insi ghts into empirical observations of the convergence behavior of numerical m ethods in computational electromagnetics.