Quasi-Optimal Convergence Rate of an Adaptive Weakly Over-Penalized Interior Penalty Method

Abstract

We analyze an adaptive discontinuous finite element method (ADFEM) for the weakly over-penalized symmetric interior penalty (WOPSIP) operator applied to symmetric positive definite second order elliptic boundary value problems. For first degree polynomials, we prove that the ADFEM is a contraction for the sum of the energy error and the scaled error estimator between two consecutive loops of the adaptive algorithm. After establishing this geometric decay, we define a suitable approximation class and prove that the adaptive WOPSIP method obeys a quasi-optimal rate of convergence.