Direct Guaranteed Lower Eigenvalue Bounds with Optimal a Priori Convergence Rates for the Bi-Laplacian

Abstract

An extra-stabilised Morley finite element method (FEM) directly computes guaranteed lower eigenvalue bounds with optimal a priori convergence rates for the bi-Laplace Dirichlet eigenvalues. The smallness assumption $\min\{\lambda_h,\lambda\}h_{\max}^{4}$ $\le 15.0864$ on the maximal mesh-size $h_{\max}$ makes the computed $k$-th discrete eigenvalue $\lambda_h\le \lambda$ a lower eigenvalue bound for the $k$-th Dirichlet eigenvalue $\lambda$. This holds for multiple and clusters of eigenvalues and serves for the localisation of the bi-Laplacian Dirichlet eigenvalues in particular for coarse meshes. The analysis requires interpolation error estimates for the Morley FEM with explicit constants in any space dimension $n\ge 2$, which are of independent interest. The convergence analysis in $3$D follows the Babuska-Osborn theory and relies on a companion operator for the Morley finite element method. This is based on the Worsey-Farin 3D version of the Hsieh-Clough-Tocher macro element with a careful selection of center points in a further decomposition of each tetrahedron into 12 sub-tetrahedra. Numerical experiments in 2D support the optimal convergence rates of the extra-stabilised Morley FEM and suggest an adaptive algorithm with optimal empirical convergence rates.