A posteriori error estimates for the monodomain model in cardiac electrophysiology

Abstract

We consider the monodomain model, a system of a parabolic semilinear reaction–diffusion equation coupled with a nonlinear ordinary differential equation, arising from the (simplified) mathematical description of the electrical activity of the heart. We derive a posteriori error estimators accounting for different sources of error (space/time discretization and linearization). We prove reliability and efficiency (this latter under a suitable assumption) of the error indicators. Finally, numerical experiments assess the validity of the theoretical results.