Error estimates for a discontinuous Galerkin method with interior penalties applied to nonlinear Sobolev equations

A Discontinuous Galerkin method with interior penalties is presented for nonlinear Sobolev equations. A semi‐discrete and a family of fully‐discrete time approximate schemes are formulated. These schemes are symmetric. Hp‐version error estimates are analyzed for these schemes. For the semi‐discrete time scheme a priori L^∞(H¹) error estimate is derived and similarly, l^∞(H¹) and l²(H¹) for the fully‐discrete time schemes. These results indicate that spatial rates in H¹ and time truncation errors in L² are optimal. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008     

Local mesh refinement for the discretization of Neumann boundary control problems on polyhedra

This paper deals with optimal control problems constrained by linear elliptic partial differential equations. The case where the right‐hand side of the Neumann boundary is controlled, is studied. The variational discretization concept for these problems is applied, and discretization error estimates are derived. On polyhedral domains, one has to deal with edge and corner singularities, which reduce the convergence rate of the discrete solutions, that is, one cannot expect convergence order two for linear finite elements on quasi‐uniform meshes in general. As a remedy, a local mesh refinement strategy is presented, and a priori bounds for the refinement parameters are derived such that convergence with optimal rate is guaranteed. As a by‐product, finite element error estimates in the H¹(Ω)‐norm, L²(Ω)‐norm and L²(Γ)‐norm for the boundary value problem are obtained, where the latter one turned out to be the main challenge. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Superconvergence of the direct discontinuous Galerkin method for a time‐fractional initial‐boundary value problem

A time‐fractional reaction–diffusion initial‐boundary value problem with periodic boundary condition is considered on Q ? Ω × [0, T] , where Ω is the interval [0, l] . Typical solutions of such problem have a weak singularity at the initial time t = 0. The numerical method of the paper uses a direct discontinuous Galerkin (DDG) finite element method in space on a uniform mesh, with piecewise polynomials of degree k ≥ 2 . In the temporal direction we use the L1 approximation of the Caputo derivative on a suitably graded mesh. We prove that at each time level of the mesh, our L1‐DDG solution is superconvergent of order k + 2 in L²(Ω) to a particular projection of the exact solution. Moreover, the L1‐DDG solution achieves superconvergence of order (k + 2) in a discrete L²(Q) norm computed at the Lobatto points, and order (k + 1) superconvergence in a discrete H¹(Q) seminorm at the Gauss points; numerical results show that these estimates are sharp.     

A posteriori error estimates for finite element approximations to the wave equation with discontinuous coefficients

We derive residual‐based a posteriori error estimates of finite element method for linear wave equation with discontinuous coefficients in a two‐dimensional convex polygonal domain. A posteriori error estimates for both the space‐discrete case and for implicit fully discrete scheme are discussed in L^∞(L²) norm. The main ingredients used in deriving a posteriori estimates are new Clément type interpolation estimates in conjunction with appropriate adaption of the elliptic reconstruction technique of continuous and discrete solutions. We use only an energy argument to establish a posteriori error estimates with optimal order convergence in the L^∞(L²) norm.     

Fractional Crank–Nicolson–Galerkin finite element scheme for the time‐fractional nonlinear diffusion equation

This article presents a finite element scheme with Newton's method for solving the time‐fractional nonlinear diffusion equation. For time discretization, we use the fractional Crank–Nicolson scheme based on backward Euler convolution quadrature. We discuss the existence‐uniqueness results for the fully discrete problem. A new discrete fractional Gronwall type inequality for the backward Euler convolution quadrature is established. A priori error estimate for the fully discrete problem in L²(Ω) norm is derived. Numerical results based on finite element scheme are provided to validate theoretical estimates on time‐fractional nonlinear Fisher equation and Huxley equation.     

Superconvergence analysis of a linearized three‐step backward differential formula finite element method for nonlinear Sobolev equation

A linearized three‐step backward differential formula (BDF) Galerkin finite element method (FEM) is developed for nonlinear Sobolev equation with bilinear element. Temporal error and spatial error are discussed through introducing a time‐discrete system. Solutions of the time‐discrete system are bounded in H²‐norm by the temporal error. Superconvergence results of order O(h² + τ³) in H¹‐norm for the original variable are deduced based on the spatial error. Some new tricks are utilized to get higher order of the temporal error and the spatial error. At last, two numerical examples are provided to support the theoretical analysis. Here, h is the subdivision parameter, and τ is the time step.     

Interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods with implicit time‐integration techniques for nonlinear parabolic equations

We prove existence and numerical stability of numerical solutions of three fully discrete interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods for solving nonlinear parabolic equations. Under some appropriate regularity conditions, we give the l²(H¹) and l^∞(L²) error estimates of the fully discrete symmetric interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin–scheme with the implicit θ ‐schemes in time, which include backward Euler and Crank–Nicolson finite difference approximations. Our estimates are optimal with respect to the mesh size h. The theoretical results are confirmed by some numerical experiments. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013     

Convergence analysis of virtual element methods for semilinear parabolic problems on polygonal meshes

In this article, we discuss and analyze new conforming virtual element methods (VEMs) for the approximation of semilinear parabolic problems on convex polygonal meshes in two spatial dimension. The spatial discretization is based on polynomial and suitable nonpolynomial functions, and a Euler backward scheme is employed for time discretization. The discrete formulation of both the proposed schemes—semidiscrete and fully discrete (with time discretization) is discussed in detail, and the unique solvability of the resulted schemes is discussed. A priori error estimates for the proposed schemes (semidiscrete and fully discrete) in H¹‐ and L²‐norms are derived under the assumption that the source term f is Lipschitz continuous. Some numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme and to confirm the theoretical convergence rates.     

Large time behavior of isentropic compressible Navier–Stokes system in ℝ3

We consider the long‐time behavior and optimal decay rates of global strong solution to three‐dimensional isentropic compressible Navier–Stokes (CNS) system in the present paper. When the regular initial data also belong to some Sobolev space with l?4 and s∈[0, 1], we show that the global solution to the CNS system converges to the equilibrium state at a faster decay rate in time. In particular, the density and momentum converge to the equilibrium state at the rates (1 + t)^?3/4?s/2 in the L²‐norm or (1 + t)^?3/2?s/2 in the L^∞‐norm, respectively, which are shown to be optimal for the CNS system. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Superconvergence analysis for time‐dependent Maxwell's equations in metamaterials

In this article, we consider the time‐dependent Maxwell's equations modeling wave propagation in metamaterials. One‐order higher global superclose results in the L² norm are proved for several semidiscrete and fully discrete schemes developed for solving this model using nonuniform cubic and rectangular edge elements. Furthermore, L^∞ superconvergence at element centers is proved for the lowest order rectangular edge element. To our best knowledge, such pointwise superconvergence result and its proof are original, and we are unaware of any other publications on this issue. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential 2011     

A priori error estimates of an extrapolated space‐time discontinuous galerkin method for nonlinear convection‐diffusion problems

We deal with the numerical solution of a scalar nonstationary nonlinear convection‐diffusion equation. We employ a combination of the discontinuous Galerkin finite element (DGFE) method for the space as well as time discretization. The linear diffusive and penalty terms are treated implicitly whereas the nonlinear convective term is treated by a special higher order explicit extrapolation from the previous time step, which leads to the necessity to solve only a linear algebraic problem at each time step. We analyse this scheme and derive a priori asymptotic error estimates in the L^∞(L²) –norm and the L²(H¹) –seminorm with respect to the mesh size h and time step τ. Finally, we present an efficient solution strategy and numerical examples verifying the theoretical results. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 27: 1456–1482, 2010     

Methods for the numerical solution of the Benjamin‐Bona‐Mahony‐Burgers equation

L^∞‐error estimates for finite element for Galerkin solutions for the Benjamin‐Bona‐Mahony‐Burgers (BBMB) equation are considered. A priori bound and the semidiscrete Galerkin scheme are studied using appropriate projections. For fully discrete Galerkin schemes, we consider the backward Euler method and analyze the corresponding error estimates. For a second order accuracy in time, we propose a three‐level backward method. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008     

Finite element approximations with quadrature for second‐order hyperbolic equations

In this article, the effect of numerical quadrature on the finite element Galerkin approximations to the solution of hyperbolic equations has been studied. Both semidiscrete and fully discrete schemes are analyzed and optimal estimates are derived in the L^∞(H¹), L^∞(L²) norms, whereas quasi‐optimal estimate is derived in the L^∞(L^∞) norm using energy methods. The analysis in the present paper improves upon the earlier results of Baker and Dougalis [SIAM J Numer Anal 13 (1976), pp 577–598] under the minimum smoothness assumptions of Rauch [SIAM J Numer Anal 22 (1985), pp 245–249] for a purely second‐order hyperbolic equation with quadrature. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 18: 537–559, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/num.10022     

Superconvergence analysis of finite element method for Poisson–Nernst–Planck equations

This article concerns with the superconvergence analysis of bilinear finite element method (FEM) for nonlinear Poisson–Nernst–Planck (PNP) equations. By employing high accuracy integral identities together with mean value technique, the superclose estimates in H¹‐norm are derived for the semi‐discrete and the backward Euler fully‐discrete schemes, which improve the suboptimal error estimate in L²‐norm in the previous literature. Furthermore, the global superconvergence results in H¹‐norm are obtained through interpolation postprocessing approach. Finally, a numerical example is provided to confirm the theoretical analysis.     

A space–time discontinuous Galerkin method for linear convection-dominated Sobolev equations

This article presents a space–time discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method for linear convection-dominated Sobolev equations. The finite element method has basis functions that are continuous in space and discontinuous in time, and variable spatial meshes and time steps are allowed. In the discrete intervals of time, using properties of the Radau quadrature rule, eliminates the restriction to space–time meshes of convectional space–time Galerkin methods. The existence and uniqueness of the approximate solution are proved. An optimal priori error estimate in L^∞(H¹) is derived. Numerical experiments are presented to confirm theoretical results.     

A C0 interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method for fourth‐order total variation flow. I: Derivation of the method and numerical results

We consider the numerical solution of a fourth‐order total variation flow problem representing surface relaxation below the roughening temperature. Based on a regularization and scaling of the nonlinear fourth‐order parabolic equation, we perform an implicit discretization in time and a C⁰ Interior Penalty Discontinuous Galerkin (C⁰IPDG) discretization in space. The C⁰IPDG approximation can be derived from a mixed formulation involving numerical flux functions where an appropriate choice of the flux functions allows to eliminate the discrete dual variable. The fully discrete problem can be interpreted as a parameter dependent nonlinear system with the discrete time as a parameter. It is solved by a predictor corrector continuation strategy featuring an adaptive choice of the time step sizes. A documentation of numerical results is provided illustrating the performance of the C⁰IPDG method and the predictor corrector continuation strategy. The existence and uniqueness of a solution of the C⁰IPDG method will be shown in the second part of this paper.     

New energy identities and super convergence analysis of the energy conserved splitting FDTD methods for 3D Maxwell's equations

The energy‐conserved splitting finite‐difference time‐domain (EC‐S‐FDTD) method has recently been proposed to solve the Maxwell equations with second order accuracy while numerically keep the L² energy conservation laws of the equations. In this paper, the EC‐S‐FDTD scheme for the 3D Maxwell equations is proved to be energy‐conserved and unconditionally stable in the discrete H¹ norm. The EC‐S‐FDTD scheme is of second‐order accuracy both in time step and spatial steps, which suggests the super‐convergence of this scheme in the discrete H¹ norm. And the divergence of the electric field of the EC‐S‐FDTD scheme in the discrete L² norm is second‐order accurate. Numerical experiments confirm our theoretical analysis. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of spatial quadrature on finite element galerkin approximations to hyperbolic integro-differential equations

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of numerical quadrature on the finite element approximations to the solutions of hyperbolic intego-differential equations. Both semidiscrete and fully discrete schemes are analyzed and optimal estimates are derived in L ^∞(H ¹)L ^∞(L ²) norms and quasi-optimal estimate in L ^∞(L ^∞) norm using energy arguments. Further, optimal L(L ²)-estimates are shown to hold with minimal smoothness assumptions on the initial functions. The analysis in the present paper not only improves upon the earlier results of Baker and Dougalis [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 13 (1976), pp. 577-598] but also confirms the minimum smoothness assumptions of Rauch [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 22 (1985), pp. 245-249] for purely second order hyperbolic equation with quadrature.     

Defect correction and Galerkin's method for second-order boundary value problems

The defect correction technique, based on the Galerkin finite element method, is analyzed as a procedure to obtain highly accurate numerical solutions to second-order elliptic boundary value problems. The basic solutions, defined over a rectangular region Ω, are computed using continuous piecewise bilinear polynomials on rectangles. These solutions are O(h²) accurate globally in the second-order discrete Sobolev norm. Corrections to these basic solutions are obtained using higher-order piecewise polynomials (Lagrange polynomials or splines) to form defects. An O(h²) improvement is gained on the first correction. The lack of regularity of the discrete problems (beyond the second-order Sobolev norm) makes it impossible to retain this order of improvement, but for problems satisfying certain periodicity conditions, straightforward arbitrary accuracy is obtained, since these problems possess high-order regularity. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Weak Galerkin finite element methods for a fourth order parabolic equation

This paper is devoted to a newly developed weak Galerkin finite element method with the stabilization term for a linear fourth order parabolic equation, where weakly defined Laplacian operator over discontinuous functions is introduced. Priori estimates are developed and analyzed in L² and an H² type norm for both semi‐discrete and fully discrete schemes. And finally, numerical examples are provided to confirm the theoretical results.