Div First-Order System LL* (FOSLL*) for Second-Order Elliptic Partial Differential Equations

The first-order system LL* (FOSLL*) approach for general second-order elliptic partial differential equations was proposed and analyzed in [10], in order to retain the full efficiency of the L2 norm first-order system least-squares (FOSLS) ap- proach while exhibiting the generality of the inverse-norm FOSLS approach. The FOSLL* approach in [10] was applied to the div-curl system with added slack vari- ables, and hence it is quite complicated. In this paper, we apply the FOSLL* approach to the div system and establish its well-posedness. For the corresponding finite ele- ment approximation, we obtain a quasi-optimal a priori error bound under the same regularity assumption as the standard Galerkin method, but without the restriction to sufficiently small mesh size. Unlike the FOSLS approach, the FOSLL* approach does not have a free a posteriori error estimator, we then propose an explicit residual error estimator and establish its reliability and efficiency bound

Physics in Riemann's mathematical papers

Riemann's mathematical papers contain many ideas that arise from physics, and some of them are motivated by problems from physics. In fact, it is not easy to separate Riemann's ideas in mathematics from those in physics. Furthermore, Riemann's philosophical ideas are often in the background of his work on science. The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of Riemann's mathematical results based on physical reasoning or motivated by physics. We also elaborate on the relation with philosophy. While we discuss some of Riemann's philosophical points of view, we review some ideas on the same subjects emitted by Riemann's predecessors, and in particular Greek philosophers, mainly the pre-socratics and Aristotle. The final version of this paper will appear in the book: From Riemann to differential geometry and relativity (L. Ji, A. Papadopoulos and S. Yamada, ed.) Berlin: Springer, 2017

A symmetric nodal conservative finite element method for the Darcy equation

This work introduces and analyzes novel stable Petrov-Galerkin EnrichedMethods (PGEM) for the Darcy problem based on the simplest but unstable continuous P1/P0 pair. Stability is recovered inside a Petrov-Galerkin framework where element-wise dependent residual functions, named multi-scale functions, enrich both velocity and pressure trial spaces. Unlike the velocity test space that is augmented with bubble-like functions, multi-scale functions correct edge residuals as well. The multi-scale functions turn out to be the well-known lowest order Raviart-Thomas basis functions for the velocity and discontinuous quadratics polynomial functions for the pressure. The enrichment strategy suggests the way to recover the local mass conservation property for nodal-based interpolation spaces. We prove that the method and its symmetric version are well-posed and achieve optimal error estimates in natural norms. Numerical validations confirm claimed theoretical results

Split least-squares finite element methods for linear and nonlinear parabolic problems

AbstractIn this paper, we propose some least-squares finite element procedures for linear and nonlinear parabolic equations based on first-order systems. By selecting the least-squares functional properly each proposed procedure can be split into two independent symmetric positive definite sub-procedures, one of which is for the primary unknown variable u and the other is for the expanded flux unknown variable σ. Optimal order error estimates are developed. Finally we give some numerical examples which are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis