A weak Galerkin mixed finite element method for second order elliptic problems

Abstract

A new weak Galerkin (WG) method is introduced and analyzed for the second order elliptic equation formulated as a system of two first order linear equations. This method, called WG-MFEM, is designed by using discontinuous piecewise polynomials on finite element partitions with arbitrary shape of polygons/polyhedra. The WG-MFEM is capable of providing very accurate numerical approximations for both the primary and flux variables. Allowing the use of discontinuous approximating functions on arbitrary shape of polygons/polyhedra makes the method highly flexible in practical computation. Optimal order error estimates in both discrete <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper H Superscript 1"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:msup> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">H^1</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> and <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper L squared"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>L</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">L^2</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> norms are established for the corresponding weak Galerkin mixed finite element solutions.