For Laplacians defined by measures on a bounded domain in ℝn, we prove analogues of the classical eigenvalue estimates for the standard Laplacian: lower bound of sums of eigenvalues by Li and Yau, and gaps of consecutive eigenvalues by Payne, Pólya and Weinberger. This work is motivated by the study of spectral gaps for Laplacians on fractals.

We propose a hybrid spectral element method for fractional two-point boundary value problem (FBVPs) involving both Caputo and Riemann-Liouville (RL) fractional derivatives. We first formulate these FBVPs as a second kind Volterra integral equation (VIEs) with weakly singular kernel, following a similar procedure in [16]. We then design a hybrid spectral element method with generalized Jacobi functions and Legendre polynomials as basis functions. The use of generalized Jacobi functions allow us to deal with the usual singularity of solutions at t = 0. We establish the existence and uniqueness of the numerical solution, and derive a hptype error estimates under L2(I)-norm for the transformed VIEs. Numerical results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

We propose a stochastic Galerkin method using sparse wavelet bases for the Boltzmann equation with multi-dimensional random inputs. Themethod uses locally supported piecewise polynomials as an orthonormal basis of the random space. By a sparse approach, only a moderate number of basis functions is required to achieve good accuracy in multi-dimensional random spaces. We discover a sparse structure of a set of basis-related coefficients, which allows us to accelerate the computation of the collision operator. Regularity of the solution of the Boltzmann equation in the random space and an accuracy result of the stochastic Galerkin method are proved in multi-dimensional cases. The efficiency of the method is illustrated by numerical examples with uncertainties from the initial data, boundary data and collision kernel.

We introduce a multiple interval Chebyshev-Gauss-Lobatto spectral collocation method for the initial value problems of the nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODES). This method is easy to implement and possesses the high order accuracy. In addition, it is very stable and suitable for long time calculations. We also obtain the hp-version bound on the numerical error of the multiple interval collocation method under H 1-norm. Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical expectations.

A generalised Hermite spectral method for Fisher's equation in genetics with different asymptotic solution behaviour at infinities is proposed, involving a fully discrete scheme using a second order finite difference approximation in the time. The convergence and stability of the scheme are analysed, and some numerical results demonstrate its efficiency and substantiate our theoretical analysis.

The h-p version of the continuous Petrov-Galerkin time stepping method is analyzed for nonlinear initial value problems. An L∞-error bound explicit with respect to the local discretization and regularity parameters is derived. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the theoretical results.

A Newton/LU-SGS (lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel) iteration implicit method was developed to solve two-dimensional Euler and Navier-Stokes equations by the DG/FV hybrid schemes on arbitrary grids. The Newton iteration was employed to solve the nonlinear system, while the linear system was solved with LU-SGS iteration. The effect of several parameters in the implicit scheme, such as the CFL number, the Newton sub-iteration steps, and the update frequency of Jacobian matrix, was investigated to evaluate the performance of convergence history. Several typical test cases were simulated, and compared with the traditional explicit Runge-Kutta (RK) scheme. Firstly the Couette flow was tested to validate the order of accuracy of the present DG/FV hybrid schemes. Then a subsonic inviscid flow over a bump in a channel was simulated and the effect of parameters was investigated also. Finally, the implicit algorithm was applied to simulate a subsonic inviscid flow over a circular cylinder and the viscous flow in a square cavity. The numerical results demonstrated that the present implicit scheme can accelerate the convergence history efficiently. Choosing proper parameters would improve the efficiency of the implicit scheme. Moreover, in the same framework, the DG/FV hybrid schemes are more efficient than the same order DG schemes.

In this paper, an extremal eigenvalue problem to the Sturm-Liouville equations with discontinuous coefficients and volume constraint is investigated. Liouville transformation is applied to change the problem into an equivalent minimization problem. Finite element method is proposed and the convergence for the finite element solution is established. A monotonic decreasing algorithm is presented to solve the extremal eigenvalue problem. A global convergence for the algorithm in the continuous case is proved. A few numerical results are given to depict the efficiency of the method.

In this paper, we propose the Laguerre spectral method for high order problems with mixed inhomogeneous boundary conditions. It is also available for approximated solutions growing fast at infinity. The spectral accuracy is proved. Numerical results demonstrate its high effectiveness.

New numerical methods based on collocation methods with the mechanical quadrature rules are proposed to solve some systems of singular integro-differential equations that are defined on arbitrary smooth closed contours of the complex plane. We carry out the convergence analysis in classical Hölder spaces. A numerical example is also presented.

In this work the Laguerre basis for the biharmonic equation introduced by Jie Shen is employed in the spectral solution of self-similar problems of the boundary layer theory. An original Petrov-Galerkin formulation of the Falkner-Skan equation is presented which is based on a judiciously chosen special basis function to capture the asymptotic behaviour of the unknown. A spectral method of remarkable simplicity is obtained for computing Falkner-Skan-Cooke boundary layer flows. The accuracy and efficiency of the Laguerre spectral approximation is illustrated by determining the linear stability of nonseparated and separated flows according to the Orr-Sommerfeld equation. The pentadiagonal matrices representing the derivative operators are explicitly provided in an Appendix to aid an immediate implementation of the spectral solution algorithms.

Flexible discretization techniques for the approximative solution of coupled wave propagation problems are investigated. In particular, the advantages of using non-matching grids are presented, when one subregion has to be resolved by a substantially finer grid than the other subregion. We present the non-matching grid technique for the case of a mechanical-acoustic coupled as well as for acoustic-acoustic coupled systems. For the first case, the problem formulation remains essentially the same as for the matching situation, while for the acoustic-acoustic coupling, the formulation is enhanced with Lagrange multipliers within the framework of Mortar Finite Element Methods. The applications will clearly demonstrate the superiority of the Mortar Finite Element Method over the standard Finite Element Method both concerning the flexibility for the mesh generation as well as the computational time.

We consider an optimal control problem with an 1D singularly perturbed differential state equation. For solving such problems one uses the enhanced system of the state equation and its adjoint form. Thus, we obtain a system of two convection-diffusion equations. Using linear finite elements on adapted grids we treat the effects of two layers arising at different boundaries of the domain. We proof uniform error estimates for this method on meshes of Shishkin type. We present numerical results supporting our analysis.

A computational study on the enhancement of the second harmonic generation (SHG) in one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystals is presented. The mathematical model is derived from a nonlinear system of Maxwell’s equations, which partly overcomes the shortcoming of some existing models based on the undepleted pump approximation. We designed an iterative scheme coupled with the finite element method which can be applied to simulate the SHG in one dimensional nonlinear photonic band gap structures in our previous work. For the case that the nonlinearity is strong which is desirable to enhance the conversion efficiency, a continuation method is introduced to ensure the convergence of the iterative procedure. The convergence of our method is fast. Numerical experiments also indicate the conversion efficiency of SHG can be significantly enhanced when the frequencies of the fundamental and the second harmonic wave are tuned at the photonic band edges. The maximum total conversion efficiency available reaches more than 50% in all the cases studied.

The finite volume wave propagation method and the finite element Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) method are studied for applications to balance laws describing plasma fluids. The plasma fluid equations explored are dispersive and not dissipative. The physical dispersion introduced through the source terms leads to the wide variety of plasma waves. The dispersive nature of the plasma fluid equations explored separates the work in this paper from previous publications. The linearized Euler equations with dispersive source terms are used as a model equation system to compare the wave propagation and RKDG methods. The numerical methods are then studied for applications of the full two-fluid plasma equations. The two-fluid equations describe the self-consistent evolution of electron and ion fluids in the presence of electromagnetic fields. It is found that the wave propagation method, when run at a CFL number of 1, is more accurate for equation systems that do not have disparate characteristic speeds. However, if the oscillation frequency is large compared to the frequency of information propagation, source splitting in the wave propagation method may cause phase errors. The Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin method providesmore accurate results for problems near steady-state aswell as problems with disparate characteristic speeds when using higher spatial orders.

We perform a comparison in terms of accuracy and CPU time between second order BDF semi-Lagrangian and Lagrange-Galerkin schemes in combination with high order finite element method. The numerical results show that for polynomials of degree 2 semi-Lagrangian schemes are faster than Lagrange-Galerkin schemes for the same number of degrees of freedom, however, for the same level of accuracy both methods are about the same in terms of CPU time. For polynomials of degree larger than 2, Lagrange-Galerkin schemes behave better than semi-Lagrangian schemes in terms of both accuracy and CPU time; specially, for polynomials of degree 8 or larger. Also, we have performed tests on the parallelization of these schemes and the speedup obtained is quasi-optimal even with more than 100 processors.

A quasi non-overlapping hybrid scheme that combines the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and the finite-element time-domain (FETD) method with nonconforming meshes is developed for time-domain solutions of Maxwell’s equations. The FETD method uses mixed-order basis functions for electric and magnetic fields, while the FDTD method uses the traditional Yee’s grid; the two methods are joined by a buffer zone with the FETD method and the discontinuous Galerkin method is used for the domain decomposition in the FETD subdomains. The main features of this technique is that it allows non-conforming meshes and an arbitrary numbers of FETD and FDTD subdomains. The hybrid method is completely stable for the time steps up to the stability limit for the FDTD method and FETD method. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of this technique.

A discontinuous Galerkin method for the ideal 5 moment two-fluid plasma system is presented. The method uses a second or third order discontinuous Galerkin spatial discretization and a third order TVD Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme. The method is benchmarked against an analytic solution of a dispersive electron acoustic square pulse as well as the two-fluid electromagnetic shock [1] and existing numerical solutions to the GEM challenge magnetic reconnection problem [2]. The algorithm can be generalized to arbitrary geometries and three dimensions. An approach to maintaining small gauge errors based on error propagation is suggested.