Cones with convoluted geometry that always scatter or radiate

Abstract

We investigate fixed energy scattering from conical potentials having an irregular cross-section. The incident wave can be any arbitrary non-trivial Herglotz wave. We show that a large number of such local conical scatterers scatter all incident waves, meaning that the far-field will always be non-zero. In essence there are no incident waves for which these potentials would seem transparent at any given energy. We show more specifically that there is a large collection of star-shaped cones whose local geometries always produce a scattered wave. In fact, except for a countable set, all cones from a family of deformations between a circular and a star-shaped cone will always scatter any non-trivial incident Herglotz wave. Our methods are based on the use of spherical harmonics and a deformation argument. We also investigate the related problem for sources. In particular if the support of the source is locally a thin cone, with an arbitrary cross-section, then it will produce a non-zero far-field.