Snorre Harald Christiansen

Snorre Harald Christiansen, Ragnar Winther

Eigenvalue problems for semidefinite operators with infinite dimensional kernels appear for instance in electromagnetics. Variational discretizations with edge elements have long been analyzed in terms of a discrete compactness property. As an alternative, we show here how the abstract theory can be developed in terms of a geometric property called the vanishing gap condition. This condition is shown to be equivalent to eigenvalue convergence and intermediate between two different discrete variants of Friedrichs estimates. Next we turn to a more practical means of checking these properties. We introduce a notion of compatible operator and show how the previous conditions are equivalent to the existence of such operators with various convergence properties. In particular the vanishing gap condition is shown to be equivalent to the existence of compatible operators satisfying an Aubin-Nitsche estimate. Finally we give examples demonstrating that the implications not shown to be equivalences, indeed are not.

Snorre Harald Christiansen, Kaibo Hu

We provide both a general framework for discretizing de Rham sequences of differential forms of high regularity, and some examples of finite element spaces that fit in the framework. The general framework is an extension of the previously introduced notion of Finite Element Systems, and the examples include conforming mixed finite elements for Stokes' equation. In dimension 2 we detail four low order finite element complexes and one infinite family of highorder finite element complexes. In dimension 3 we define one low order complex, which may be branched into Whitney forms at a chosen index. Stokes pairs with continuous or discontinuous pressure are provided in arbitrary dimension. The finite element spaces all consist of composite polynomials. The framework guarantees some nice properties of the spaces, in particular the existence of commuting interpolators. It also shows that some of the examples are minimal spaces.

Snorre Harald Christiansen

We elaborate on the interpretation of some mixed finite element spaces in terms of differential forms. First we develop a framework in which we show how tools from algebraic topology can be applied to the study of their cohomological properties. The analysis applies in particular to certain $hp$ finite element spaces, extending results in trivial topology often referred to as the exact sequence property. Then we define regularization operators. Combined with the standard interpolators they enable us to prove discrete Poincaré-Friedrichs inequalities and discrete Rellich compactness for finite element spaces of differential forms of arbitrary degree on compact manifolds of arbitrary dimension.

Snorre Harald Christiansen, Tore Gunnar Halvorsen

We provide an action for gauge theories discretized on simplicial meshes, inspired by finite element methods. The action is discretely gauge invariant and we give a proof of consistency. A discrete Noether's theorem that can be applied to our setting, is also proved.

Snorre Harald Christiansen

We develop the theory of mixed finite elements in terms of special inverse systems of complexes of differential forms, defined over cellular complexes. Inclusion of cells corresponds to pullback of forms. The theory covers for instance composite piecewise polynomial finite elements of variable order over polyhedral grids. Under natural algebraic and metric conditions, interpolators and smoothers are constructed, which commute with the exterior derivative and whose product is uniformly stable in Lebesgue spaces. As a consequence we obtain not only eigenpair approximation for the Hodge-Laplacian in mixed form, but also variants of Sobolev injections and translation estimates adapted to variational discretizations.

Snorre Harald Christiansen

First we express the holonomy along a boundary curve as the integral on the domain, of an expression which is linear in the curvature. Then we provide a rigorous justification of the definition of curvature in Regge calculus.

Snorre Harald Christiansen, Tore Gunnar Halvorsen

We introduce a numerical method, based on finite elements and lattice gauge theory, to compute approximate solutions to Schrödinger and Pauli equations. The crucial geometric property of the method is discrete gauge invariance. The main new achievement is second order convergence. This is proved by interpreting the method as defined on gauge potential dependent finite element spaces and providing an analysis of such spaces in terms of gauge potential dependent norms on simplices of all dimensions.