Finite element methods on piecewise equidistant meshes for interior turning point problems (Q1339041)

This paper deals with the singularly perturbed two-point boundary value problem, (1) \(-\varepsilon u''+ x^ k b(x)u'+ d(x)u= f(x)\), for \(x\in (- 1,1)\), \(u(-1)= u(1)= 0\), \(| b(x)|>\beta >0\), \(d(x)\geq 0\) and \(d(0) >0\), with a small parameter \(\varepsilon\in (0,1]\) and \(k\) a positive integer, \(b\), \(d\) and \(f\) are sufficiently smooth on \([- 1,1]\). Galerkin finite element methods for (1) are generated. These methods use piecewise linear functions with special piecewise equidistant discretization meshes. Shishkin meshes [cf. \textit{G. I. Shishkin}, Grid approximation of singularly perturbed parabolic equations with internal layers, Sov. J. Numer. Anal. Math. Mod. 3, No. 5, 393-407 (1988)] are used to handle boundary layers of exponential type. A generalization of Shishkin's mesh, which is equidistant in each of \(O(\ln N)\) subintervals \((N\to\infty)\) and yields much faster convergence is presented. These methods are proved to be convergent, uniformly in the singular perturbation parameter, in a weighted energy norm and the usual \(L_ 2\) norm.