Residual-free bubbles for advection-diffusion problems: The general error analysis (Q1972269)

The authors investigate finite-element approximations to non-self-adjoint elliptic problems of the form \[ (\varepsilon A + C) u =f, \] accompanied by homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, where \(A\) is a symmetric second order elliptic operator, \(C\) is a skew-symmetric first order differential operator and \(\varepsilon >0\). It is well-known that standard Galerkin finite element approximations to this problem with respect to a discretization parameter \(h\) with \(\frac{\varepsilon}{h} \ll 1\) provides an unstable method. Besides the residual-free bubble approach to overcome this difficulty there is the local Green's function approach [cf. \textit{T. J. R. Hughes}, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 127, 1-4, 387-401 (1995; Zbl 0866.76044)] and the SUPG method [cf. \textit{A. N. Brooks} and \textit{T. J. R. Hughes}, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 32, 199-259 (1982; Zbl 0497.76041)]. It is further known that for piecewise linear elements all those approaches coincide. This is not longer true for piecewise polynomials of higher order. The present paper gives an optimal error analysis for the residual-free bubble method with respect to various norms and piecewise polynomial finite elements of degree \(k>1\), which is an extension of \textit{F. Brezzi, T. J. R. Hughes, L. D. Marini, A. Russo} and \textit{E. Süli} [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 36, No. 6, 1933-1948 (1999; Zbl 0947.65115)]. The authors' approach is essentially based on sharp interpolation results in certain Besov spaces of differential order \(1/2\). This technique seems to be completely new in this context.