Using the method of discrete dipoles to approximate solutions of the problems of light scattering and absorption by particles

A method of approximate calculation of the interaction inverse matrix in the method of discrete dipoles is proposed. The knowledge of this matrix makes it possible to determine the optical response of a system to the action of an electromagnetic wave with an arbitrary shape, which can be represented as a combination of vector spherical wave functions. The number of calculation operations of the matrix in the proposed method is considerably smaller than in the case of its direct calculation. In the case of a change in the refractive index of scattering particles, two methods of approximate calculation of the interaction inverse matrix are also proposed. This makes it possible to calculate the optical response of systems with new characteristics without direct solving equations of a system with a large dimension. The accuracy of the methods is numerically determined for particles with spherical and cubic shapes. It is shown that the methods are computationally efficient and can be used to calculate the values of polarization vectors inside particles and extinction and absorption cross sections of systems.