Crouzeix-Raviart boundary elements (Q1027736)

The authors analyze a non-conforming boundary element method with discontinuous elements. More precisely, the use of piecewise linear Crouzeix-Raviart elements where jumps of basis functions across element boundaries have integral mean zero is studied. The meshes are triangular and regular, but the basis functions are not continuous. The authors prove that, for sufficiently smooth given data and closed surfaces, this method converges like \(O(h^{1/2})\) in a discrete \(H^{1/2}\)-norm, whereas the conforming method has the same rate of convergence in the energy norm. The model problem is the Laplacian exterior to a polyhedral domain or exterior to an open polyhedral surface with Dirichlet boundary conditions. A numerical experiment confirms the predicted convergence of Crouzeix-Raviart boundary elements.