A method of effective potentials for calculating the frequency spectrum of eccentrically layered spherical cavity resonators

A novel method for the calculation of eigenfrequencies of non-uniformly filled spherical cavity resonators is developed. The impact of the system symmetry on the electromagnetic field distribution as well as on its degrees of freedom (the set of resonant modes) is examined. It is shown that in the case of angularly symmetric cavity, regardless of its radial non-uniformity, the set of resonator modes is, as anticipated, a superposition of TE and TM oscillations which can be described in terms of a single scalar function independently of each other. The spectrum is basically determined through the introduction of effective ``dynamic'' potentials which encode the infill inhomogeneity. The violation of polar symmetry in the infill dielectric properties, the azimuthal symmetry being simultaneously preserved, suppresses all azimuthally non-uniform modes of electric-type (TM) oscillations. In the absence of angular symmetry of both electric and magnetic properties of the resonator infill, only azimuthally uniform distribution of both TM and TE fields is expected to occur in the resonator. The comparison is made of the results obtained through the proposed method and of the test problem solution obtained with use of commercial solvers. The method appears to be efficient for computational complex algorithms for solving spectral problems, including those for studying the chaotic properties of electrodynamic systems' spectra.