Energy norm a posteriori error estimation for mixed discontinuous Galerkin approximations of the Maxwell operator

Abstract

In this paper we develop the a posteriori error estimation of mixed discontinuous Galerkin finite element approximations of the Maxwell operator. In particular, by employing suitable Helmholtz decompositions of the error, together with the conservation properties of the underlying method, computable upper bounds on the error, measured in terms of a natural (mesh-dependent) energy norm, are derived. Numerical experiments testing the performance of our a posteriori error bounds for problems with both smooth and singular analytical solutions are presented.