Locating multiple multipolar acoustic sources using the direct sampling method

This work is concerned with the inverse source problem of locating multiple multipolar sources from boundary measurements for the Helmholtz equation. We develop simple and effective sampling schemes for location acquisition of the sources with a single wavenumber. Our algorithms are based on some novel indicator functions whose indicating behaviors could be used to locate multiple multipolar sources. The inversion schemes are totally “direct” in the sense that only simple integral calculations are involved in evaluating the indicator functions. Rigorous mathematical justifications are provided and extensive numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness and efficiency of the proposed methods.