Asymptotically exact functional error estimators based on superconvergent gradient recovery

The use of dual/adjoint problems for approximating functionals of solutions of PDEs with great accuracy or to merely drive a goal-oriented adaptive refinement scheme has become well-accepted, and it continues to be an active area of research. The traditional approach involves dual residual weighting (DRW). In this work we present two new functional error estimators and give conditions under which we can expect them to be asymptotically exact. The first is of DRW type and is derived for meshes in which most triangles satisfy an -approximate parallelogram property. The second functional estimator involves dual error estimate weighting (DEW) using any superconvergent gradient recovery technique for the primal and dual solutions. Several experiments are done which demonstrate the asymptotic exactness of a DEW estimator which uses a gradient recovery scheme proposed by Bank and Xu, and the effectiveness of refinement done with respect to the corresponding local error indicators. Resubmitted to Numerische Mathematik, June 30, 2005, with changes suggested by referees.     

Additive Schwarz methods for thep-version finite element method

Summary In this paper, we study some additive Schwarz methods (ASM) for thep-version finite element method. We consider linear, scalar, self adjoint, second order elliptic problems and quadrilateral elements in the finite element discretization. We prove a constant bound independent of the degreep and the number of subdomainsN, for the condition number of the ASM iteration operator. This optimal result is obtained first in dimension two. It is then generalized to dimensionn and to a variant of the method on the interface. Numerical experiments confirming these results are reported. As is the case for other additive Schwarz methods, our algorithms are highly parallel and scalable.This work was supported in part by the Applied Math. Sci. Program of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-FG02-88ER25053 and, in part, by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-CCR-9204255     

Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors II: Crack singularities

We consider the Poisson equation −Δu=f with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition on a two-dimensional polygonal domain Ω with cracks. Multigrid methods for the computation of singular solutions and stress intensity factors using piecewise linear functions are analyzed. The convergence rate for the stress intensity factors is whenfεL ²(Ω) and whenfεH ¹(Ω). The convergence rate in the energy norm is in the first case and in the second case. The costs of these multigrid methods are proportional to the number of elements in the triangulation. The general case wherefεH ^m (Ω) is also discussed. The work of the first author was partially supported by NSF under grant DMS-96-00133     

New blow-up rates for fast controls of Schrödinger and heat equations

We consider the null-controllability problem for the Schrödinger and heat equations with boundary control. We concentrate on short-time, or fast, controls. We improve recent estimates (see [L. Miller, Geometric bounds on the growth rate of null-controllability cost for the heat equation in small time, J. Differential Equations 204 (2004) 202-226; L. Miller, How violent are fast controls for Schrödinger and plate vibrations?, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 172 (2004) 429-456; L. Miller, Controllability cost of conservative systems: Resolvent condition and transmutation, J. Funct. Anal. 218 (2005) 425-444; L. Miller, The control transmutation method and the cost of fast controls, SIAM J. Control Optim. 45 (2006) 762-772]) on the norm of the operator associating to any initial state the minimal norm control driving the system to zero. Our main results concern the Schrödinger and heat equations in one space dimension. They yield new estimates concerning window problems for series of exponentials as described in [T.I. Seidman, The coefficient map for certain exponential sums, Nederl. Akad. Wetensch. Indag. Math. 48 (1986) 463-478] and in [T.I. Seidman, S.A. Avdonin, S.A. Ivanov, The “window problem” for series of complex exponentials, J. Fourier Anal. Appl. 6 (2000) 233-254]. These results are used, following [L. Miller, The control transmutation method and the cost of fast controls, SIAM J. Control Optim. 45 (2006) 762-772], to deal with the case of several space dimensions.     

Energy-conserved splitting FDTD methods for Maxwell’s equations

In this paper, two new energy-conserved splitting methods (EC-S-FDTDI and EC-S-FDTDII) for Maxwell’s equations in two dimensions are proposed. Both algorithms are energy-conserved, unconditionally stable and can be computed efficiently. The convergence results are analyzed based on the energy method, which show that the EC-S-FDTDI scheme is of first order in time and of second order in space, and the EC-S-FDTDII scheme is of second order both in time and space. We also obtain two identities of the discrete divergence of electric fields for these two schemes. For the EC-S-FDTDII scheme, we prove that the discrete divergence is of first order to approximate the exact divergence condition. Numerical dispersion analysis shows that these two schemes are non-dissipative. Numerical experiments confirm well the theoretical analysis results.     

Recovery type superconvergence and a posteriori error estimates for control problems governed by Stokes equations

In this paper, we derive recovery type superconvergence analysis and a posteriori error estimates for the finite element approximation of the distributed optimal control governed by Stokes equations. We obtain superconvergence results and asymptotically exact a posteriori error estimates by applying two recovery methods, which are the patch recovery technique and the least-squares surface fitting method. Our results are based on some regularity assumption for the Stokes control problems and are applicable to the first order conforming finite element method with regular but nonuniform partitions.     

Analysis of the cell boundary element methods for convection dominated convection-diffusion equations

We introduce two kinds of the cell boundary element (CBE) methods for convection dominated convection-diffusion equations: one is the CBE method with the exact bubble function and the other with inexact bubble functions. The main focus of this paper is on inexact bubble CBE methods. For inexact bubble CBE methods we introduce a family of numerical methods depending on two parameters, one for control of interior layers and the other for outflow boundary layers. Stability and convergence analysis are provided and numerical tests for inexact bubble CBEs with various choices of parameters are presented.     

On the finite volume element method

Summary The finite volume element method (FVE) is a discretization technique for partial differential equations. It uses a volume integral formulation of the problem with a finite partitioning set of volumes to discretize the equations, then restricts the admissible functions to a finite element space to discretize the solution. this paper develops discretization error estimates for general selfadjoint elliptic boundary value problems with FVE based on triangulations with linear finite element spaces and a general type of control volume. We establishO(h) estimates of the error in a discreteH ¹ semi-norm. Under an additional assumption of local uniformity of the triangulation the estimate is improved toO(h ²). Results on the effects of numerical integration are also included.This research was sponsored in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under grant number AFOSR-86-0126 and the National Science Foundation under grant number DMS-8704169. This work was performed while the author was at the University of Colorado at Denver     

An interpolation matched interface and boundary method for elliptic interface problems

An interpolation matched interface and boundary (IMIB) method with second-order accuracy is developed for elliptic interface problems on Cartesian grids, based on original MIB method proposed by Zhou et al. [Y. Zhou, G. Wei, On the fictious-domain and interpolation formulations of the matched interface and boundary method, J. Comput. Phys. 219 (2006) 228-246]. Explicit and symmetric finite difference formulas at irregular grid points are derived by virtue of the level set function. The difference scheme using IMIB method is shown to satisfy the discrete maximum principle for a certain class of problems. Rigorous error analyses are given for the IMIB method applied to one-dimensional (1D) problems with piecewise constant coefficients and two-dimensional (2D) problems with singular sources. Comparison functions are constructed to obtain a sharp error bound for 1D approximate solutions. Furthermore, we compare the ghost fluid method (GFM), immersed interface method (IIM), MIB and IMIB methods for 1D problems. Finally, numerical examples are provided to show the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method.     

Numerical analysis of electric field formulations of the eddy current model

This paper deals with finite element methods for the numerical solution of the eddy current problem in a bounded conducting domain crossed by an electric current, subjected to boundary conditions involving only data easily available in applications. Two different cases are considered depending on the boundary data: input current intensities or differences of potential. Weak formulations in terms of the electric field are given in both cases. In the first one, the input current intensities are imposed by means of integrals on curves lying on the boundary of the domain and joining current entrances and exit. In the second one, the electric potentials are imposed by means of Lagrange multipliers, which are proved to represent the input current intensities. Optimal error estimates are proved in both cases and implementation issues are discussed. Finally, numerical tests confirming the theoretical results are reported. Partially supported by Xunta de Galicia research grant PGIDIT02PXIC20701PN (Spain). Partially supported by FONDAP in Applied Mathematics (Chile). Partially supported by MCYT (Spain) project DPI2003-01316.     

Eigenfrequencies of fractal drums

A method for the computation of eigenfrequencies and eigenmodes of fractal drums is presented. The approach involves first conformally mapping the unit disk to a polygon approximating the fractal and then solving a weighted eigenvalue problem on the unit disk by a spectral collocation method. The numerical computation of the complicated conformal mapping was made feasible by the use of the fast multipole method as described in [L. Banjai, L.N. Trefethen, A multipole method for Schwarz–Christoffel mapping of polygons with thousands of sides, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 25(3) (2003) 1042–1065]. The linear system arising from the spectral discretization is large and dense. To circumvent this problem we devise a fast method for the inversion of such a system. Consequently, the eigenvalue problem is solved iteratively. We obtain eight digits for the first eigenvalue of the Koch snowflake and at least five digits for eigenvalues up to the 20th. Numerical results for two more fractals are shown.     

A posteriori error estimators for nonconforming finite element methods of the linear elasticity problem

In this work we derive and analyze a posteriori error estimators for low-order nonconforming finite element methods of the linear elasticity problem on both triangular and quadrilateral meshes, with hanging nodes allowed for local mesh refinement. First, it is shown that equilibrated Neumann data on interelement boundaries are simply given by the local weak residuals of the numerical solution. The first error estimator is then obtained by applying the equilibrated residual method with this set of Neumann data. From this implicit estimator we also derive two explicit error estimators, one of which is similar to the one proposed by Dörfler and Ainsworth (2005) [24] for the Stokes problem. It is established that all these error estimators are reliable and efficient in a robust way with respect to the Lamé constants. The main advantage of our error estimators is that they yield guaranteed, i.e., constant-free upper bounds for the energy-like error (up to higher order terms due to data oscillation) when a good estimate for the inf-sup constant is available, which is confirmed by some numerical results.     

Arch beam models: finite element analysis and superconvergence

Summary This paper studies finite element methods for a class of arch beam models. For both standard and mixed methods, existence and uniqueness results are proved, optimal rates of convergence are obtained and the superconvergence property is established. Reduced integration is shown to be an efficient method for arch beam problems and selected reduced integration is found to be identical to the mixed method. The significance of the analysis is threefold. The mixed method and the reduced integration methods converge uniformly at the optimal rate with respect to the arch thickness parameter, so they are locking free. Second, mixed method and reduced integration keep the superconvergence properties of the standard method. Finally, this is the first attempt to investigate the superconvergence of finite element methods for arch beam problems. We set up two types of superconvergence results: displacement at the nodal points and gradient at the Gauss points.This work was partially supported by the National Science Fundation grant CCR-88-20279     

The Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov theorem for stabilizable hyperbolic boundary control systems

In this paper we present a version of the Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov theorem for a class of boundary control systems of hyperbolic type. Unstable, controllable systems are considered and stabilizability withunbounded feedbacks is permitted.Paper partially supported by the Italian MINISTERO DELLA RICERCA SCIENTIFICA E TECNOLOGICA within the program of GNAFA-CNR and by NATO CRG program SA.5-2-05 (CRG940161).     

Hamilton-Jacobi theory over time scales and applications to linear-quadratic problems

In this paper we first derive the verification theorem for nonlinear optimal control problems over time scales. That is, we show that the value function is the only solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, in which the minimum is attained at an optimal feedback controller. Applications to the linear-quadratic regulator problem (LQR problem) gives a feedback optimal controller form in terms of the solution of a generalized time scale Riccati equation, and that every optimal solution of the LQR problem must take that form. A connection of the newly obtained Riccati equation with the traditional one is established. Problems with shift in the state variable are also considered. As an important tool for the latter theory we obtain a new formula for the chain rule on time scales. Finally, the corresponding LQR problem with shift in the state variable is analyzed and the results are related to previous ones.     

Bubble finite elements for the primitive equations of the ocean

We introduce in this paper two original Mixed methods for the numerical resolution of the (stationary) Primitive Equations (PE) of the Ocean. The PE govern the behavior of oceanic flows in shallow domains for large time scales. We use a reduced formulation (Lions et al. [28]) involving horizontal velocities and surface pressures. By using bubble functions constructed ad-hoc, we are able to define two stable Mixed Methods requiring a low number of degrees of freedom. The first one is based on the addition of bubbles of reduced support to velocities elementwise. The second one makes use of conic bubbles of extended support along the vertical coordinate. The latter constitutes a genuine mini-element for the PE, e.g., it requires the least number of extra degrees of freedom to stabilize piecewise linear hydrostatic pressures. Both methods verify a specific inf-sup condition and provide stability and convergence. Finally, we compare several numerical features of the proposed pairs in the context of other FE methods found in the literature.     

On computingINV block preconditionings for the conjugate gradient method

The INV(k) and MINV(k) block preconditionings for the conjugate gradient method require generation of selected elements of the inverses of symmetric matrices of bandwidth 2k+1. Generalizing the previously describedk=1 (tridiagonal) case tok=2, explicit expressions for the inverse elements of a symmetric pentadiagonal matrix in terms of Green's matrix of rank two are given. These expressions are found to be seriously ill-conditioned; hence alternative computational algorithms for the inverse elements must be used. Behavior of thek=1 andk=2 preconditionings are compared for some discretized elliptic partial differential equation test problems in two dimensions.Presented by the first author at the Joint U.S.-Scandinavian Symposium on Scientific Computing and Mathematical Modeling, January 1985, in honor of Germund Dahlquist on the occasion of his 60th birthday. This work was supported in part by the Applied Mathematical Sciences subprogram of the Office of Energy Research, U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE AC03-76SF00098.     

Characterizing the inf-sup condition on product spaces

In this paper we establish characterization results for the continuous and discrete inf-sup conditions on product spaces. The inf-sup condition for each component of the bilinear form involved and suitable decompositions of the pivot space in terms of the associated null spaces are the key ingredients of our theorems. We illustrate the theory through its application to bilinear forms arising from the variational formulations of several boundary value problems. Dedicated to Professor Ivo Babuska on the occasion of his 82nd birthday. This research was partially supported by Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM) of the Universidad de Chile, by Centro de Investigación en Ingenierí a Matemática (CI²MA) of the Universidad de Concepción, by FEDER/MCYT Project MTM2007-63204, and by Gobierno de Aragón (Grupo Consolidado PDIE).     

High-order discretization and multigrid solution of elliptic nonlinear constrained optimal control problems

High(-mixed)-order finite difference discretization of optimality systems arising from elliptic nonlinear constrained optimal control problems are discussed. For the solution of these systems, an efficient and robust multigrid algorithm is presented. Theoretical and experimental results show the advantages of higher-order discretization and demonstrate that the proposed multigrid scheme is able to solve efficiently constrained optimal control problems also in the limit case of bang-bang control.