In this paper, we propose and analyze a nodal-continuous and $H^1$-conforming finite element method for the numerical computation of Maxwell's equations, with singular solution in a fractional order Sobolev space $H^r(\Omega)$, where $r$ may take any value in the most interesting interval $(0, 1)$. The key feature of the method is that mass-lumping linear finite element $L^2$ projections act on the curl and divergence partial differential operators so that the singular solution can be sought in a setting of $L^2(\Omega)$ space. We shall use the nodal-continuous linear finite elements, enriched with one element bubble in each element, to approximate the singular and non-$H^1$ solution. Discontinuous and nonhomogeneous media are allowed in the method. Some error estimates are given and a number of numerical experiments for source problems as well as eigenvalue problems are presented to illustrate the superior performance of the proposed method.

A new residual-based stabilized finite element method is analyzed for solving the Stokes equations in terms of velocity and pressure, where the $H^{−1}$ norm is introduced in the measurement of the residuals to obtain a symmetric positive definite (SPD) method. The $H^{−1}$ norm is computable and can be always easily realized offline by the continuous linear finite element solution or the preconditioned counterpart of the Poisson Dirichlet problem. Although the $H^{−1}$ norm is computed in the linear element space, no matter what the finite element spaces for the velocity and the pressure are, optimal error bounds can be established when using continuous finite element pairs $R_l$−$R_m$ for velocity and pressure for any $l, m\ge 1$. Numerical experiments are performed to confirm the theoretical results obtained.

A recently developed nonlocal vector calculus is exploited to provide a variational analysis for a general class of nonlocal diffusion problems described by a linear integral equation on bounded domains in Rn. The nonlocal vector calculus also enables striking analogies to be drawn between the nonlocal model and classical models for diffusion, including a notion of nonlocal flux. The ubiquity of the nonlocal operator in applications is illustrated by a number of examples ranging from continuum mechanics to graph theory. In particular, it is shown that fractional Laplacian and fractional derivative models for anomalous diffusion are special cases of the nonlocal model for diffusion that we consider. The numerous applications elucidate different interpretations of the operator and the associated governing equations. For example, a probabilistic perspective explains that the nonlocal spatial operator appearing in our model corresponds to the infinitesimal generator for a symmetric jump process. Sufficient conditions on the kernel of the nonlocal operator and the notion of volume constraints are shown to lead to a well-posed problem. Volume constraints are a proxy for boundary conditions that may not be defined for a given kernel. In particular, we demonstrate for a general class of kernels that the nonlocal operator is a mapping between a volume constrained subspace of a fractional Sobolev subspace and its dual. We also demonstrate for other particular kernels that the inverse of the operator does not smooth but does correspond to diffusion. The impact of our results is that both a continuum analysis and a numerical method for the modeling of anomalous diffusion on bounded domains in Rn are provided. The analytical framework allows us to consider finite-dimensional approximations using discontinuous and continuous Galerkin methods, both of which are conforming for the nonlocal diffusion equation we consider; error and condition number estimates are derived.

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