A Space-Time Discontinuous Galerkin Trefftz Method for time dependent Maxwell's equations

We consider the discretization of electromagnetic wave propagation problems by a discontinuous Galerkin Method based on Trefftz polynomials. This method fits into an abstract framework for space-time discontinuous Galerkin methods for which we can prove consistency, stability, and energy dissipation without the need to completely specify the approximation spaces in detail. Any method of such a general form results in an implicit time-stepping scheme with some basic stability properties. For the local approximation on each space-time element, we then consider Trefftz polynomials, i.e., the subspace of polynomials that satisfy Maxwell's equations exactly on the respective element. We present an explicit construction of a basis for the local Trefftz spaces in two and three dimensions and summarize some of their basic properties. Using local properties of the Trefftz polynomials, we can establish the well-posedness of the resulting discontinuous Galerkin Trefftz method. Consistency, stability, and energy dissipation then follow immediately from the results about the abstract framework. The method proposed in this paper therefore shares many of the advantages of more standard discontinuous Galerkin methods, while at the same time, it yields a substantial reduction in the number of degrees of freedom and the cost for assembling. These benefits and the spectral convergence of the scheme are demonstrated in numerical tests

A spectral Petrov-Galerkin formulation for pipe flow I: Linear stability and transient growth

A spectral Petrov-Galerkin scheme for the numerical approximation of flow in a circular pipe is presented. The mathematical formulation is presented in detail focusing on the analyticity of solenoidal vector fields used for the approximation of the flow. A comprehensive study of linear stability is reported for axisymmetric, non-axisymmetric, streamwise dependent and streamwise independent perturbations . The scheme provides spectral accuracy in all cases studied and the numerical results are in agreement with former works. A parametric exploration of pseudospectra and transient growth has been carried out for the aforementioned cases.\ud \ud This research was supported by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant GR/M30890

A Polynomial Spectral Calculus for Analysis of DG Spectral Element Methods

We introduce a polynomial spectral calculus that follows from the summation by parts property of the Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto quadrature. We use the calculus to simplify the analysis of two multidimensional discontinuous Galerkin spectral element approximations

A Provably Stable Discontinuous Galerkin Spectral Element Approximation for Moving Hexahedral Meshes

We design a novel provably stable discontinuous Galerkin spectral element (DGSEM) approximation to solve systems of conservation laws on moving domains. To incorporate the motion of the domain, we use an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation to map the governing equations to a fixed reference domain. The approximation is made stable by a discretization of a skew-symmetric formulation of the problem. We prove that the discrete approximation is stable, conservative and, for constant coefficient problems, maintains the free-stream preservation property. We also provide details on how to add the new skew-symmetric ALE approximation to an existing discontinuous Galerkin spectral element code. Lastly, we provide numerical support of the theoretical results

Polynomial (chaos) approximation of maximum eigenvalue functions: efficiency and limitations

This paper is concerned with polynomial approximations of the spectral abscissa function (the supremum of the real parts of the eigenvalues) of a parameterized eigenvalue problem, which are closely related to polynomial chaos approximations if the parameters correspond to realizations of random variables. Unlike in existing works, we highlight the major role of the smoothness properties of the spectral abscissa function. Even if the matrices of the eigenvalue problem are analytic functions of the parameters, the spectral abscissa function may not be everywhere differentiable, even not everywhere Lipschitz continuous, which is related to multiple rightmost eigenvalues or rightmost eigenvalues with multiplicity higher than one. The presented analysis demonstrates that the smoothness properties heavily affect the approximation errors of the Galerkin and collocation-based polynomial approximations, and the numerical errors of the evaluation of coefficients with integration methods. A documentation of the experiments, conducted on the benchmark problems through the software Chebfun, is publicly available.Comment: This is a pre-print of an article published in Numerical Algorithms. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11075-018-00648-

Spectral/hp element methods: recent developments, applications, and perspectives

The spectral/hp element method combines the geometric flexibility of the classical h-type finite element technique with the desirable numerical properties of spectral methods, employing high-degree piecewise polynomial basis functions on coarse finite element-type meshes. The spatial approximation is based upon orthogonal polynomials, such as Legendre or Chebychev polynomials, modified to accommodate C0-continuous expansions. Computationally and theoretically, by increasing the polynomial order p, high-precision solutions and fast convergence can be obtained and, in particular, under certain regularity assumptions an exponential reduction in approximation error between numerical and exact solutions can be achieved. This method has now been applied in many simulation studies of both fundamental and practical engineering flows. This paper briefly describes the formulation of the spectral/hp element method and provides an overview of its application to computational fluid dynamics. In particular, it focuses on the use the spectral/hp element method in transitional flows and ocean engineering. Finally, some of the major challenges to be overcome in order to use the spectral/hp element method in more complex science and engineering applications are discussed

Multi-patch discontinuous Galerkin isogeometric analysis for wave propagation: explicit time-stepping and efficient mass matrix inversion

We present a class of spline finite element methods for time-domain wave propagation which are particularly amenable to explicit time-stepping. The proposed methods utilize a discontinuous Galerkin discretization to enforce continuity of the solution field across geometric patches in a multi-patch setting, which yields a mass matrix with convenient block diagonal structure. Over each patch, we show how to accurately and efficiently invert mass matrices in the presence of curved geometries by using a weight-adjusted approximation of the mass matrix inverse. This approximation restores a tensor product structure while retaining provable high order accuracy and semi-discrete energy stability. We also estimate the maximum stable timestep for spline-based finite elements and show that the use of spline spaces result in less stringent CFL restrictions than equivalent piecewise continuous or discontinuous finite element spaces. Finally, we explore the use of optimal knot vectors based on L2 n-widths. We show how the use of optimal knot vectors can improve both approximation properties and the maximum stable timestep, and present a simple heuristic method for approximating optimal knot positions. Numerical experiments confirm the accuracy and stability of the proposed methods