In the present work we introduce a new family of cell-centered Finite Volume schemes for anisotropic and heterogeneous diffusion operators inspired by the MPFA L method.A very general framework for the convergence study of finite volume methods is provided and then used to establish the convergence of the new method.Fairly general meshes are covered and a computable sufficient criterion for coercivity is provided. In order to guarantee consistency in the presence of heterogeneous diffusivity, we introduce a non-standard test space in $H_0^1$ (Ω) and prove its density. Thorough assessment on a set of anisotropic heterogeneous problems as well as a comparison with classical multi-point Finite Volume methods is provided.

The dynamics of dendritic growth of a crystal in an undercooled melt isdetermined by macroscopic diffusion-convection of heat and by capillary forcesacting on the nanometer scale of the solid-liquid interface width.Its modelling is useful for instance in processing techniques based on casting.The phase-field method is widely used to study evolution of such microstructural phase transformations ona continuum level; it couples the energy equation to a phenomenological Allen-Cahn/Ginzburg-Landauequation modelling the dynamics of an order parameter determining the solid and liquid phases,including also stochastic fluctuations to obtain the qualitatively correctresult of dendritic side branching.This work presents a method to determine stochastic phase-field models from atomisticformulations by coarse-graining molecular dynamics. It has three steps: (1) a precisequantitative atomistic definition of the phase-field variable, based on the localpotential energy;(2) derivation of its coarse-graineddynamics model, from microscopic Smoluchowski molecular dynamics (that is Brownian or over damped Langevin dynamics);and (3) numerical computation of the coarse-grained model functions. The coarse-grained model approximates Gibbs ensemble averages of the atomistic phase-field, bychoosing coarse-grained drift and diffusion functions that minimize the approximation error of observables in thisensemble average.

The electrowetting process is commonly used to handle very small amounts of liquid on a solid surface. This process can be modelled mathematically with the help of the shape optimization theory. However, solving numerically the resulting shape optimization problem is a very complex issue, even for reduced models that occur in simplified geometries. Recently, the second author obtained convincing results in the 2D axisymmetric case. In this paper, we propose and analyze a method that is suitable for the full 3D case.

This work presents an effective and accurate method for determining, from a theoretical and computational point of view, the time-harmonic Green's function of an isotropic elastic half-plane where an impedance boundary condition is considered. This method, based on the previous work done by Durán et al. (cf. [Numer. Math.107 (2007) 295–314; IMA J. Appl. Math.71 (2006) 853–876]) for the Helmholtz equation in a half-plane, combines appropriately analytical and numerical techniques, which has an important advantage because the obtention of explicit expressions for the surface waves. We show, in addition to the usual Rayleigh wave, another surface wave appearing in some special cases. Numerical results are given to illustrate that. This is an extended and detailed version of the previous article by Durán et al. [C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. IIB334 (2006) 725–731].

This paper introduces a scheme for the numerical approximation of a model for two turbulent flows with coupling at an interface. We consider the variational formulation of the coupled model, where the turbulent kinetic energy equation is formulated by transposition. We prove the convergence of the approximation to this formulation for 3D flows for large turbulent viscosities and smooth enough flows, whenever bounded in W 1,p Sobolev norms for p large enough. Under the same assumptions, we show that the limit is a solution of the initial problem. Finally, we give some numerical experiments to enlighten the theoretical work.

This paper is devoted to a conditional stability estimate related to the ill-posed Cauchy problems for the Laplace's equation in domains with C 1,1 boundary. It is an extension of anearlier result of [Phung, ESAIM: COCV9 (2003) 621–635] for domains of class C ∞. Our estimate is established by using a Carleman estimate near the boundary in which the exponential weight depends on the distance function to the boundary. Furthermore, we prove that this stability estimate is nearly optimal and induces a nearly optimal convergence rate for the method of quasi-reversibility introduced in [Lattès and Lions, Dunod (1967)] to solve the ill-posed Cauchy problems.

The numerical solution of the elliptic Monge-Ampère Partial Differential Equation has been a subject of increasing interest recently [Glowinski, in 6th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics, ICIAM 07, Invited Lectures (2009) 155–192;Oliker and Prussner, Numer. Math.54 (1988) 271–293; Oberman, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. B10 (2008) 221–238; Dean and Glowinski, in Partial differential equations, Comput. Methods Appl. Sci. 16 (2008) 43–63; Glowinski et al., Japan J. Indust. Appl. Math.25 (2008) 1–63; Dean and Glowinski, Electron. Trans. Numer. Anal.22 (2006) 71–96; Dean and Glowinski, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.195 (2006) 1344–1386; Dean et al., in Control and boundary analysis, Lect. Notes Pure Appl. Math. 240 (2005) 1–27; Feng and Neilan, SIAM J. Numer. Anal.47 (2009) 1226–1250; Feng and Neilan, J. Sci. Comput.38 (2009) 74–98; Feng and Neilan, http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1240v1; G. Loeper and F. Rapetti, C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris340 (2005) 319–324].There are already two methods available [Oliker and Prussner, Numer. Math.54 (1988) 271–293; Oberman, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. Ser. B10 (2008) 221–238] which converge even for singular solutions.However, many of the newly proposed methods lack numerical evidence of convergence on singular solutions, or are known to break down in this case. In this article we present and study the performance of two methods.The first method, which is simply the natural finite difference discretization of the equation, is demonstrated to be the best performing method (in terms of convergence and solution time) currently available for generic (possibly singular) problems, in particular when the right hand side touches zero.The second method, which involves the iterative solution of a Poisson equation involving the Hessian of the solution, is demonstrated to be the best performing (in terms of solution time) when the solution is regular, which occurs when the right hand side is strictly positive.

This paper gives an error analysis of themulti-configuration time-dependent Hartree (MCTDH)method for the approximation of multi-particle time-dependent Schrödinger equations. The MCTDH method approximates the multivariate wave function by a linear combination of products of univariate functions and replaces the high-dimensional linear Schrödinger equation by a coupled system of ordinary differential equations and low-dimensional nonlinear partial differential equations. The main result of this paper yields an L 2 error bound of the MCTDH approximation in terms of a best-approximation error bound in a stronger norm and of lower bounds of singular values of matrix unfoldings of the coefficient tensor. This result permits us to establish convergence of the MCTDH method to the exact wave function under appropriate conditions on the approximability of the wave function, and it points to reasons for possible failure in other cases.

The construction of a well-conditioned integral equation for iterative solution of scattering problems with a variable Leontovitch boundary condition is proposed. A suitable parametrix is obtained by using a new unknown and an approximation of the transparency condition. We prove the well-posedness of the equation for any wavenumber. Finally, some numerical comparisons with well-tried method prove the efficiency of the new formulation.