Hierarchical bases of finite-element spaces in the discretization of nonsymmetric elliptic boundary value problems (Q1059379)

Hierarchical bases of finite element spaces arise in a very natural way if one refines a coarse initial grid several times to get the final triangulation. In his Habilitationsschrift [Über die Aufspaltung von Finite-Element-Räumen in Teilräume verschiedener Verfeinerungsstufen, RWTH Aachen (1984)] the author has proved that in the case of symmetric and positive definite plane elliptic boundary value problems the spectral condition numbers of the discretisation matrices grow only quadratically with the number of refinement levels, if one uses hiearachical bases instead of the usual nodal bases. In the given paper these results are extended to mildly nonsymmetric problems. Some simple numerical examples for the application of Krylov-space methods to the discrete equation are given.