  In the last decade, the perfectly matched layer (PML) approach has proved a
flexible and accurate method for the simulation of waves in unbounded media.
Most PML formulations, however, usually require wave equations stated in their
standard second-order form to be reformulated as first-order systems, thereby
introducing many additional unknowns. To circumvent this cumbersome and
somewhat expensive step, we instead propose a simple PML formulation directly
for the wave equation in its second-order form. Inside the absorbing layer, our
formulation requires only two auxiliary variables in two space dimensions and
four auxiliary variables in three space dimensions; hence it is cheap to
implement. Since our formulation requires no higher derivatives, it is also
easily coupled with standard finite difference or finite element methods.
Strong stability is proved while numerical examples in two and three space
dimensions illustrate the accuracy and long time stability of our PML
formulation.
