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In this article the authors present a new solver for the Poisson problem on spherical shells. The method is derived by application of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) in all three spherical variables. Through a particular change of variables valid on spherical shells, this new approach avoids a variable coefficient on the radial differential operator, resulting in a constant-coefficient formulation that can be fast-diagonalized via FFT. The authors describe the Fourier expansion in the angular variables and the fast diagonalization of the radial derivative using the FFT, including second-, fourth- and sixth-order finite difference approximations. An algorithmic description of the sixth-order solver is described, and numerical tests that demonstrate the theoretical rate of convergence are presented.

Poisson equation, spherical coordinate, FFT, spectral-finite difference method, fast diagonalization, high order accuracy, error estimate, trapezoidal rule, Euler-Maclaurin formula, Bernoulli numbers.