A vertex-centered,dual discontinuous Galerkin method

This note introduces a new version of the discontinuous Galerkin method for discretizing first-order hyperbolic partial differential equations. The method uses piecewise polynomials that are continuous on a macroelement surrounding the nodes in the unstructured mesh but discontinuous between the macroelements. At lowest order, the method reduces to a vertex-centered finite-volume method with control volumes based on a dual mesh, and the method can be implemented using an edge-based data structure. The method provides therefore a strategy to extend existing vertex-centered finite-volume codes to higher order using the discontinuous Galerkin method. Preliminary tests on a model linear hyperbolic equation in two-dimensional indicate a favorable qualitative behavior for nonsmooth solutions and optimal convergence rates for smooth solutions.