Geometrical characterizations of radiating and non-radiating elastic sources and mediums with applications

In this paper, we investigate two types of time-harmonic elastic wave scattering problems. The first one involves the scattered wave generated by an active elastic source with compact support. The second one concerns elastic wave scattering caused by an inhomogeneous medium, also with compact support. We derive several novel quantitative results concerning the geometrical properties of the underlying scatterer, the associated source or incident wave field, and the physical parameters. In particular, we show that a scatterer with either a small support or high-curvature boundary points must radiate at any frequency. These qualitative characterizations allow us to establish several local and global uniqueness results for determining the support of the source or medium scatterer from a single far-field measurement. Furthermore, we reveal new geometric properties of elastic transmission eigenfunctions. To derive a quantitative relationship between the intensity of a radiating or non-radiating source and the diameter of its support, we utilize the Helmholtz decomposition, the translation-invariant L²-norm estimate for the Lamé operator, and global energy estimates. Another pivotal technical approach combines complex geometric optics (CGO) solutions with local regularity estimates, facilitating microlocal analysis near admissible K -curvature boundary points. © 2026 Elsevier Inc.