31 research outputs found
Numerical solutions of a boundary value problem on the sphere using radial basis functions
Boundary value problems on the unit sphere arise naturally in geophysics and
oceanography when scientists model a physical quantity on large scales. Robust
numerical methods play an important role in solving these problems. In this
article, we construct numerical solutions to a boundary value problem defined
on a spherical sub-domain (with a sufficiently smooth boundary) using radial
basis functions (RBF). The error analysis between the exact solution and the
approximation is provided. Numerical experiments are presented to confirm
theoretical estimates
Fast iterative solvers for boundary value problems on a local spherical region
Boundary value problems on local spherical regions arise naturally in geophysics and oceanography when scientists model a physical quantity on large scales. Meshless methods using radial basis functions provide a simple way to construct numerical solutions with high accuracy. However, the linear systems arising from these methods are usually ill-conditioned, which poses a challenge for iterative solvers. We construct preconditioners based on an additive Schwarz method to accelerate the solution process for solving boundary value problems on local spherical regions.
References D. Crowdy. Point vortex motion on the surface of a sphere with impenetrable boundaries. Physics of Fluids, 18:036602 (2006). doi:10.1063/1.2183627. A. E. Gill. Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics, International Geophysics Series Volume 30. Academic, New York (1982). R. Kidambi and P. K. Newton. Point vortex motion on a sphere with solid boundaries. Physics of Fluids, 12:581 (2000). doi:10.1063/1.870263. Q. T. Le Gia, I. H. Sloan, and T. Tran. Overlapping additive Schwarz preconditioners for elliptic PDEs on the unit sphere. Math. Comp., 78:79--101 (2009). doi:10.1090/S0025-5718-08-02150-9. C. Muller. Spherical Harmonics, Vol. 17 of Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Springer-Verlag, Berlin (1966). M. V. Nezlin. Some remarks on coherent structures out of chaos in planetary atmospheres and oceans. Chaos, 4:109--111 (1994). doi:10.1063/1.165997. T. Tran, Q. T. Le Gia, I. H. Sloan, and E. P. Stephan. Preconditioners for pseudodifferential equations on the sphere with radial basis functions. Numer. Math., 115:141--163 (2009). doi:10.1007/s00211-009-0269-8
Zooming from Global to Local: A Multiscale RBF Approach
Because physical phenomena on Earth's surface occur on many different length
scales, it makes sense when seeking an efficient approximation to start with a
crude global approximation, and then make a sequence of corrections on finer
and finer scales. It also makes sense eventually to seek fine scale features
locally, rather than globally. In the present work, we start with a global
multiscale radial basis function (RBF) approximation, based on a sequence of
point sets with decreasing mesh norm, and a sequence of (spherical) radial
basis functions with proportionally decreasing scale centered at the points. We
then prove that we can "zoom in" on a region of particular interest, by
carrying out further stages of multiscale refinement on a local region. The
proof combines multiscale techniques for the sphere from Le Gia, Sloan and
Wendland, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 48 (2010) and Applied Comp. Harm. Anal. 32
(2012), with those for a bounded region in from Wendland, Numer.
Math. 116 (2012). The zooming in process can be continued indefinitely, since
the condition numbers of matrices at the different scales remain bounded. A
numerical example illustrates the process
Approximation of linear partial differential equations on spheres
The theory of interpolation and approximation of solutions to
differential and integral equations on spheres has attracted
considerable interest in recent years; it has also been applied
fruitfully in fields such as physical geodesy, potential theory,
oceanography, and meteorology.
In this dissertation we study the approximation of linear
partial differential equations on spheres, namely a class of
elliptic partial differential equations
and the heat equation on the unit sphere.
The shifts of a spherical basis
function are used to construct the approximate solution. In the
elliptic case, both the finite element method and the collocation method
are discussed. In the heat equation, only the collocation method is
considered. Error estimates in the supremum norms and the Sobolev norms
are obtained when certain regularity conditions are imposed on
the spherical basis functions
Multi-level higher order QMC Galerkin discretization for affine parametric operator equations
We develop a convergence analysis of a multi-level algorithm combining higher
order quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) quadratures with general Petrov-Galerkin
discretizations of countably affine parametric operator equations of elliptic
and parabolic type, extending both the multi-level first order analysis in
[\emph{F.Y.~Kuo, Ch.~Schwab, and I.H.~Sloan, Multi-level quasi-Monte Carlo
finite element methods for a class of elliptic partial differential equations
with random coefficient} (in review)] and the single level higher order
analysis in [\emph{J.~Dick, F.Y.~Kuo, Q.T.~Le~Gia, D.~Nuyens, and Ch.~Schwab,
Higher order QMC Galerkin discretization for parametric operator equations} (in
review)]. We cover, in particular, both definite as well as indefinite,
strongly elliptic systems of partial differential equations (PDEs) in
non-smooth domains, and discuss in detail the impact of higher order
derivatives of {\KL} eigenfunctions in the parametrization of random PDE inputs
on the convergence results. Based on our \emph{a-priori} error bounds, concrete
choices of algorithm parameters are proposed in order to achieve a prescribed
accuracy under minimal computational work. Problem classes and sufficient
conditions on data are identified where multi-level higher order QMC
Petrov-Galerkin algorithms outperform the corresponding single level versions
of these algorithms. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results