Discrete comparison principles for quasilinear elliptic PDE

Abstract

Comparison principles are developed for piecewise linear finite element approximations of quasilinear elliptic partial differential equations. We consider the analysis of a class of nonmonotone Leray-Lions problems featuring both nonlinear solution and gradient dependence in the principal coefficient, and a solution dependent lower-order term. Sufficient local and global conditions on the discretization are found for conforming finite element solutions to satisfy a comparison principle, which implies uniqueness of the solution. For problems without a lower-order term, our analysis shows the meshsize is only required to be locally controlled, based on the variance of the computed solution over each element. We include a discussion of the simpler semilinear case where a linear algebra argument allows a sharper mesh condition for the lower order term.