A multilevel preconditioner based on the abstract framework of theauxiliary space method, is developed for the mortar method for thenonconforming P 1 finite element or the lowest orderCrouzeix-Raviart finite element on nonmatching grids. It is shownthat the proposed preconditioner is quasi-optimal in the sense thatthe condition number of the preconditioned system is independent ofthe mesh size, and depends only quadratically on the number ofrefinement levels. Some numerical results confirming the theory arealso provided.
