Proceedings for the ICASE Workshop on Heterogeneous Boundary Conditions

Domain Decomposition is a complex problem with many interesting aspects. The choice of decomposition can be made based on many different criteria, and the choice of interface of internal boundary conditions are numerous. The various regions under study may have different dynamical balances, indicating that different physical processes are dominating the flow in these regions. This conference was called in recognition of the need to more clearly define the nature of these complex problems. This proceedings is a collection of the presentations and the discussion groups

A Trace Finite Element Method for Vector-Laplacians on Surfaces

We consider a vector-Laplace problem posed on a 2D surface embedded in a 3D domain, which results from the modeling of surface fluids based on exterior Cartesian differential operators. The main topic of this paper is the development and analysis of a finite element method for the discretization of this surface partial differential equation. We apply the trace finite element technique, in which finite element spaces on a background shape-regular tetrahedral mesh that is surface-independent are used for discretization. In order to satisfy the constraint that the solution vector field is tangential to the surface we introduce a Lagrange multiplier. We show well-posedness of the resulting saddle point formulation. A discrete variant of this formulation is introduced which contains suitable stabilization terms and is based on trace finite element spaces. For this method we derive optimal discretization error bounds. Furthermore algebraic properties of the resulting discrete saddle point problem are studied. In particular an optimal Schur complement preconditioner is proposed. Results of a numerical experiment are included

Sobolev gradient preconditioning for the electrostatic potential equation

AbstractSobolev gradient type preconditioning is proposed for the numerical solution of the electrostatic potential equation. A constructive representation of the gradients leads to efficient Laplacian preconditioners in the iteration thanks to the available fast Poisson solvers. Convergence is then verified for the corresponding sequence in Sobolev space, implying mesh independent convergence results for the discretized problems. A particular study is devoted to the case of a ball: due to the radial symmetry of this domain, a direct realization without discretization is feasible. The simplicity of the algorithm and the fast linear convergence are finally illustrated in a numerical test example

Hierarchical interpolative factorization for elliptic operators: differential equations

This paper introduces the hierarchical interpolative factorization for elliptic partial differential equations (HIF-DE) in two (2D) and three dimensions (3D). This factorization takes the form of an approximate generalized LU/LDL decomposition that facilitates the efficient inversion of the discretized operator. HIF-DE is based on the multifrontal method but uses skeletonization on the separator fronts to sparsify the dense frontal matrices and thus reduce the cost. We conjecture that this strategy yields linear complexity in 2D and quasilinear complexity in 3D. Estimated linear complexity in 3D can be achieved by skeletonizing the compressed fronts themselves, which amounts geometrically to a recursive dimensional reduction scheme. Numerical experiments support our claims and further demonstrate the performance of our algorithm as a fast direct solver and preconditioner. MATLAB codes are freely available.Comment: 37 pages, 13 figures, 12 tables; to appear, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1307.266

A Two-Level Method for Mimetic Finite Difference Discretizations of Elliptic Problems

We propose and analyze a two-level method for mimetic finite difference approximations of second order elliptic boundary value problems. We prove that the two-level algorithm is uniformly convergent, i.e., the number of iterations needed to achieve convergence is uniformly bounded independently of the characteristic size of the underling partition. We also show that the resulting scheme provides a uniform preconditioner with respect to the number of degrees of freedom. Numerical results that validate the theory are also presented

A multidomain spectral method for solving elliptic equations

We present a new solver for coupled nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs). The solver is based on pseudo-spectral collocation with domain decomposition and can handle one- to three-dimensional problems. It has three distinct features. First, the combined problem of solving the PDE, satisfying the boundary conditions, and matching between different subdomains is cast into one set of equations readily accessible to standard linear and nonlinear solvers. Second, touching as well as overlapping subdomains are supported; both rectangular blocks with Chebyshev basis functions as well as spherical shells with an expansion in spherical harmonics are implemented. Third, the code is very flexible: The domain decomposition as well as the distribution of collocation points in each domain can be chosen at run time, and the solver is easily adaptable to new PDEs. The code has been used to solve the equations of the initial value problem of general relativity and should be useful in many other problems. We compare the new method to finite difference codes and find it superior in both runtime and accuracy, at least for the smooth problems considered here.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figure

The ANOVA decomposition and generalized sparse grid methods for the high-dimensional backward Kolmogorov equation

In this thesis, we discuss numerical methods for the solution of the high-dimensional backward Kolmogorov equation, which arises in the pricing of options on multi-dimensional jump-diffusion processes. First, we apply the ANOVA decomposition and approximate the high-dimensional problem by a sum of lower-dimensional ones, which we then discretize by a θ-scheme and generalized sparse grids in time and space, respectively. We solve the resultant systems of linear equations by iterative methods, which requires both preconditioning and fast matrix-vector multiplication algorithms. We make use of a Linear Program and an algebraic formula to compute optimal diagonal scaling parameters. Furthermore, we employ the OptiCom as non-linear preconditioner. We generalize the unidirectional principle to non-local operators and develop a new matrix-vector multiplication algorithm for the OptiCom. As application we focus on the Kou model. Using a new recurrence formula, the computational complexity of the operator application remains linear in the number of degrees of freedom. The combination of the above-mentioned methods allows us to efficiently approximate the solution of the backward Kolmogorov equation for a ten-dimensional Kou model.Die ANOVA-Zerlegung und verallgemeinerte dünne Gitter für die hochdimensionale Kolmogorov-Rückwärtsgleichung In der vorliegenden Arbeit betrachten wir numerische Verfahren zur Lösung der hochdimensionalen Kolmogorov-Rückwärtsgleichung, die beispielsweise bei der Bewertung von Optionen auf mehrdimensionalen Sprung-Diffusionsprozessen auftritt. Zuerst wenden wir eine ANOVA-Zerlegung an und approximieren das hochdimensionale Problem mit einer Summe von niederdimensionalen Problemen, die wir mit einem θ-Verfahren in der Zeit und mit verallgemeinerten dünnen Gittern im Ort diskretisieren. Wir lösen die entstehenden linearen Gleichungssysteme mit iterativen Verfahren, wofür eine Vorkonditionierung als auch schnelle Matrix-Vektor-Multiplikationsalgorithmen nötig sind. Wir entwickeln ein Lineares Programm und eine algebraische Formel, um optimale Diagonalskalierungen zu finden. Des Weiteren setzen wir die OptiCom als nicht-lineares Vorkonditionierungsverfahren ein. Wir verallgemeinern das unidirektionale Prinzip auf nicht-lokale Operatoren und entwickeln einen für die OptiCom optimierten Matrix-Vektor-Multiplikationsalgorithmus. Als Anwendungsbeispiel betrachten wir das Kou-Modell. Mit einer neuen Rekurrenzformel bleibt die Gesamtkomplexität der Operatoranwendung linear in der Anzahl der Freiheitsgrade. Unter Einbeziehung aller genannten Methoden ist es nun möglich, die Lösung der Kolmogorov-Rückwärtsgleichung für ein zehndimensionales Kou-Modell effizient zu approximieren