The asymptotic diffusion limit of a linear discontinuous discretization of a two-dimensional linear transport equation (Q1184622)

A linear transport with mean free path and absorption cross section of size \(\varepsilon\) is considered. It is well known that one obtains a diffusion problem as \(\varepsilon\) tends to zero. The transport problem on a fixed mesh, independent of \(\varepsilon\), is discretized. It is known that for the linear discontinuous Galerkin finite element discretization in one space dimension one obtains, for \(\varepsilon \to 0\), an accurate discretization of the continuous diffusion problem. The basic question of this paper is whether the same result holds in two space dimension. A linear discontinuous discretization based on rectangular meshes is considered. The main result is that the asymptotic limit of this discrete problem is not a discretization of the asymptotic limit of the continuous problem.