Triangular finite elements of HCT type and classC ρ

Let τ be some triangulation of a planar polygonal domain Ω. Given a smooth functionu, we construct piecewise polynomial functionsv∈C ^ρ(Ω) of degreen=3 ρ for ρ odd, andn=3ρ+1 for ρ even on a subtriangulation τ₃ of τ. The latter is obtained by subdividing eachT∈ρ into three triangles, andv/T is a composite triangular finite element, generalizing the classicalC ¹ cubic Hsieh-Clough-Tocher (HCT) triangular scheme. The functionv interpolates the derivatives ofu up to order ρ at the vertices of τ. Polynomial degrees obtained in this way are minimal in the family of interpolation schemes based on finite elements of this type.