In this article we present the first results on domain decomposition methods
for nonlocal operators. We present a nonlocal variational formulation for these
operators and establish the well-posedness of associated boundary value
problems, proving a nonlocal Poincar\'{e} inequality. To determine the
conditioning of the discretized operator, we prove a spectral equivalence which
leads to a mesh size independent upper bound for the condition number of the
stiffness matrix. We then introduce a nonlocal two-domain variational
formulation utilizing nonlocal transmission conditions, and prove equivalence
with the single-domain formulation. A nonlocal Schur complement is introduced.
We establish condition number bounds for the nonlocal stiffness and Schur
complement matrices. Supporting numerical experiments demonstrating the
conditioning of the nonlocal one- and two-domain problems are presented.Comment: Updated the technical part. In press in Applied Mathematics and
Computatio
