Hp-FEM for reaction–diffusion equations. II: robust exponential convergence for multiple length scales in corner domains

Abstract

Abstract In bounded, polygonal domains $\varOmega \subset {{\mathbb {R}}}^2$ with Lipschitz boundary $\partial \varOmega $ consisting of a finite number of Jordan curves admitting analytic parametrizations, we analyze $hp$-FEM discretizations of linear, second-order, singularly perturbed reaction–diffusion equations on so-called geometric boundary layer meshes. We prove, under suitable analyticity assumptions on the data, that these $hp$-FEM afford exponential convergence in the natural ‘energy’ norm of the problem, as long as the geometric boundary layer mesh can resolve the smallest length scale present in the problem. Numerical experiments confirm the robust exponential convergence of the proposed $hp$-FEM.