A posteriori error control for the Allen-Cahn problem : circumventing Gronwall's inequality
Kessler, Daniel ; Nochetto, Ricardo H. ; Schmidt, Alfred
ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis - Modélisation Mathématique et Analyse Numérique, Tome 38 (2004), p. 129-142 / Harvested from Numdam
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Phase-field models, the simplest of which is Allen-Cahn’s problem, are characterized by a small parameter ε that dictates the interface thickness. These models naturally call for mesh adaptation techniques, which rely on a posteriori error control. However, their error analysis usually deals with the underlying non-monotone nonlinearity via a Gronwall argument which leads to an exponential dependence on ε -2 . Using an energy argument combined with a topological continuation argument and a spectral estimate, we establish an a posteriori error control result with only a low order polynomial dependence in ε -1 . Our result is applicable to any conforming discretization technique that allows for a posteriori residual estimation. Residual estimators for an adaptive finite element scheme are derived to illustrate the theory.

Publié le : 2004-01-01
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1051/m2an:2004006
Classification:  65M15,  65M50,  65M60 
@article{M2AN_2004__38_1_129_0,
     author = {Kessler, Daniel and Nochetto, Ricardo H. and Schmidt, Alfred},
     title = {A posteriori error control for the Allen-Cahn problem : circumventing Gronwall's inequality},
     journal = {ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis - Mod\'elisation Math\'ematique et Analyse Num\'erique},
     volume = {38},
     year = {2004},
     pages = {129-142},
     doi = {10.1051/m2an:2004006},
     zbl = {1075.65117},
     language = {en},
     url = {http://dml.mathdoc.fr/item/M2AN_2004__38_1_129_0}
}

Kessler, Daniel; Nochetto, Ricardo H.; Schmidt, Alfred. A posteriori error control for the Allen-Cahn problem : circumventing Gronwall's inequality. ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis - Modélisation Mathématique et Analyse Numérique, Tome 38 (2004) pp. 129-142. doi : 10.1051/m2an:2004006. http://gdmltest.u-ga.fr/item/M2AN_2004__38_1_129_0/

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