Convergence and conditioning of a Nyström method for Stokes flow in exterior three-dimensional domains

Convergence and conditioning results are presented for the lowest-order member of a family of Nyström methods for arbitrary, exterior, three-dimensional Stokes flow. The flow problem is formulated in terms of a recently introduced two-parameter, weakly singular boundary integral equation of the second kind. In contrast to methods based on product integration, coordinate transformation and singularity subtraction, the family of Nyström methods considered here is based on a local polynomial correction determined by an auxiliary system of moment equations. The polynomial correction is designed to remove the weak singularity in the integral equation and provide control over the approximation error. Here we focus attention on the lowest-order method of the family, whose implementation is especially simple. We outline a convergence theorem for this method and illustrate it with various numerical examples. Our examples show that well-conditioned, accurate approximations can be obtained with reasonable meshes for a range of different geometries.