On the Galerkin finite element approximations to multi-dimensional differential and integro-differential parabolic equations

The maximum norm error estimates of the Galerkin finite element approximations to the solutions of differential and integro-differential multi-dimensional parabolic problems are considered. Our method is based on the use of the discrete version of the elliptic-Sobolev inequality and some operator representations of the finite element solutions. The results of the present paper lead to the error estimates of optimal or almost optimal order for the case of simplicial Lagrangian piecewise polynomial elements.