Frédéric Hecht

Marcella Bonazzoli, Victorita Dolean, Frédéric Hecht et al.

In this paper we focus on high order finite element approximations of the electric field combined with suitable preconditioners, to solve the time-harmonic Maxwell's equations in waveguide configurations.The implementation of high order curl-conforming finite elements is quite delicate, especially in the three-dimensional case. Here, we explicitly describe an implementation strategy, which has been embedded in the open source finite element software FreeFem++ (http://www.freefem.org/ff++/). In particular, we use the inverse of a generalized Vandermonde matrix to build basis functions in duality with the degrees of freedom, resulting in an easy-to-use but powerful interpolation operator. We carefully address the problem of applying the same Vandermonde matrix to possibly differently oriented tetrahedra of the mesh over the computational domain. We investigate the preconditioning for Maxwell's equations in the time-harmonic regime, which is an underdeveloped issue in the literature, particularly for high order discretizations. In the numerical experiments, we study the effect of varying several parameters on the spectrum of the matrix preconditioned with overlapping Schwarz methods, both for 2d and 3d waveguide configurations.

Marcella Bonazzoli, Victorita Dolean, Frédéric Hecht et al.

In this paper we focus on high order finite element approximations of the electric field combined with suitable preconditioners, to solve the time-harmonic Maxwell's equations in waveguide configurations. The implementation of high order curl-conforming finite elements is quite delicate, especially in the three-dimensional case. Here, we explicitly describe an implementation strategy, which has been embedded in the open source finite element software FreeFem++ (http://www.freefem.org/ff++/). In particular, we use the inverse of a generalized Vandermonde matrix to build a basis of generators in duality with the degrees of freedom, resulting in an easy-to-use but powerful interpolation operator. We carefully address the problem of applying the same Vandermonde matrix to possibly differently oriented tetrahedra of the mesh over the computational domain. We investigate the preconditioning for Maxwell's equations in the time-harmonic regime, which is an underdeveloped issue in the literature, particularly for high order discretizations. In the numerical experiments, we study the effect of varying several parameters on the spectrum of the matrix preconditioned with overlapping Schwarz methods, both for 2d and 3d waveguide configurations.

Albert Cohen, Nira Dyn, Frédéric Hecht et al.

A simple greedy refinement procedure for the generation of data-adapted triangulations is proposed and studied. Given a function of two variables, the algorithm produces a hierarchy of triangulations and piecewise polynomial approximations on these triangulations. The refinement procedure consists in bisecting a triangle T in a direction which is chosen so as to minimize the local approximation error in some prescribed norm between the approximated function and its piecewise polynomial approximation after T is bisected. The hierarchical structure allows us to derive various approximation tools such as multiresolution analysis, wavelet bases, adaptive triangulations based either on greedy or optimal CART trees, as well as a simple encoding of the corresponding triangulations. We give a general proof of convergence in the Lp norm of all these approximations. Numerical tests performed in the case of piecewise linear approximation of functions with analytic expressions or of numerical images illustrate the fact that the refinement procedure generates triangles with an optimal aspect ratio (which is dictated by the local Hessian of of the approximated function in case of C2 functions).

Guillaume Vergez, Ionut Danaila, Sylvain Auliac et al.

We present a new numerical system using classical finite elements with mesh adaptivity for computing stationary solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The programs are written as a toolbox for FreeFem++ (www.freefem.org), a free finite-element software available for all existing operating systems. This offers the advantage to hide all technical issues related to the implementation of the finite element method, allowing to easily implement various numerical algorithms.Two robust and optimised numerical methods were implemented to minimize the Gross-Pitaevskii energy: a steepest descent method based on Sobolev gradients and a minimization algorithm based on the state-of-the-art optimization library Ipopt. For both methods, mesh adaptivity strategies are implemented to reduce the computational time and increase the local spatial accuracy when vortices are present. Different run cases are made available for 2D and 3D configurations of Bose-Einstein condensates in rotation. An optional graphical user interface is also provided, allowing to easily run predefined cases or with user-defined parameter files. We also provide several post-processing tools (like the identification of quantized vortices) that could help in extracting physical features from the simulations. The toolbox is extremely versatile and can be easily adapted to deal with different physical models.

Toms Chacón Rebollo, Daniel Franco Coronil, Frédéric Hecht

We study in this paper a multilayer discretization of second order elliptic problems, aimed at providing reliable multilayer discretizations of shallow fluid flow problems with diffusive effects. This discretization is based upon the formulation by transposition of the equations. It is a Petrov-Galerkin discretization in which the trial functions are piecewise constant per horizontal layers, while the trial functions are continuous piecewise linear, on a vertically shifted grid. We prove the well posedness and optimal error order estimates for this discretization in natural norms, based upon specific inf-sup conditions. We present some numerical tests with parallel computing of the solution based upon the multilayer structure of the discretization, for academic problems with smooth solutions, with results in full agreement with the theory developed.

Iztok Bajc, Frédéric Hecht, Slobodan Žumer

This paper presents a 3D mesh adaptivity strategy on unstructured tetrahedral meshes by a posteriori error estimates based on metrics, studied on the case of a nonlinear finite element minimization scheme for the Landau-de Gennes free energy functional of nematic liquid crystals. Newton's iteration for tensor fields is employed with steepest descent method possibly stepping in. Aspects relating the driving of mesh adaptivity within the nonlinear scheme are considered. The algorithmic performance is found to depend on at least two factors: when to trigger each single mesh adaptation, and the precision of the correlated remeshing. Each factor is represented by a parameter, with its values possibly varying for every new mesh adaptation. We empirically show that the time of the overall algorithm convergence can vary considerably when different sequences of parameters are used, thus posing a question about optimality. The extensive testings and debugging done within this work on the simulation of systems of nematic colloids substantially contributed to the upgrade of an open source finite element-oriented programming language to its 3D meshing possibilities, as also to an outer 3D remeshing module.