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arXiv · 2605.21450

Composite B-Spline Current Deposition and Interpolation Operators for Thin-Wire Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulations

Cole Gruninger·Boyce E. Griffith
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Abstract

Holland-Simpson thin-wire finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations of obliquely oriented closed-loop antennas exhibit persistent low-frequency parasitic currents because the current-deposition operator fails to conserve charge. This deposition operator, together with an interpolation operator that samples the tangential electric field along the wire, can be realized as regularizations of distributions: the wire current is deposited as a source term by integrating it against a regularized delta function along the wire, and the electric field is sampled back to the wire by integrating it against the same regularized delta function. We show that charge conservation requires the deposited current to be discretely divergence-free when the wire carries a constant current, and we introduce a family of composite B-spline regularizations that satisfy this condition to machine precision. Exact evaluation of the coupling line integrals is possible because the B-spline kernels are piecewise polynomial with a priori-known breakpoints, allowing composite Gauss-Legendre quadrature with subinterval breakpoints at every grid-plane crossing. Taking the interpolation operator as the discrete adjoint of the deposition operator preserves skew-symmetry and ensures that a discretely irrotational electric field drives no net electromotive force around a closed loop. Numerical experiments on a center-fed dipole and on circular and square loop antennas show that the proposed regularizations yield orientation-independent impedance values consistent with known characteristics, whereas a simple trilinear regularization produces unphysical parasitic low-frequency currents in closed loops.

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Cole Gruninger, Boyce E. Griffith. 2026-06-01. Composite B-Spline Current Deposition and Interpolation Operators for Thin-Wire Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulations. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21450

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