Tracy Babb

Tracy Babb, Adrianna Gillman, Sijia Hao et al.

This paper presents a numerical method for variable coefficient elliptic PDEs with mostly smooth solutions on two dimensional domains. The PDE is discretized via a multi-domain spectral collocation method of high local order (order 30 and higher have been tested and work well). Local mesh refinement results in highly accurate solutions even in the presence of local irregular behavior due to corner singularities, localized loads, etc. The system of linear equations attained upon discretization is solved using a direct (as opposed to iterative) solver with $O(N^{1.5})$ complexity for the factorization stage and $O(N \log N)$ complexity for the solve. The scheme is ideally suited for executing the elliptic solve required when parabolic problems are discretized via time-implicit techniques. In situations where the geometry remains unchanged between time-steps, very fast execution speeds are obtained since the solution operator for each implicit solve can be pre-computed.

Tracy Babb, Per-Gunnar Martinsson, Daniel Appelo

A high-order convergent numerical method for solving linear and non-linear parabolic PDEs is presented. The time-stepping is done via an explicit, singly diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta (ESDIRK) method of order 4 or 5, and for the implicit solve, we use the recently developed "Hierarchial Poincare-Steklov (HPS)" method. The HPS method combines a multidomain spectral collocation discretization technique (a "patching method") with a nested-dissection type direct solver. In the context under consideration, the elliptic solve required in each time-step involves the same coefficient matrix, which makes the use of a direct solver particularly effective. The manuscript describes the methodology and presents numerical experiments.