Extension of the nonconforming Trefftz virtual element method to the Helmholtz problem with piecewise constant wave number

Abstract We extend the nonconforming Trefftz virtual element method introduced in [30] to the case of the fluid-fluid interface problem, that is, a Helmholtz problem with piecewise constant wave number. With respect to the original approach, we address two additional issues: firstly, we define the coupling of local approximation spaces with piecewise constant wave numbers; secondly, we enrich such local spaces with special functions capturing the physical behaviour of the solution to the target problem. As these two issues are directly related to an increase of the number of degrees of freedom, we use a reduction strategy inspired by [31] , which allows to mitigate the growth of the dimension of the approximation space when considering h - and p -refinements. This renders the new method highly competitive in comparison to other Trefftz and quasi-Trefftz technologies tailored for the Helmholtz problem with piecewise constant wave number. A wide range of numerical experiments, including the p -version with quasi-uniform meshes and the hp -version with isotropic and anisotropic mesh refinements, is presented.