A new error estimate for a primal-dual Crank-Nicolson mixed finite element using lowest degree Raviart-Thomas spaces for parabolic equations (Q2128474)

The heat equation is solved by PDMFEM (Primal- Dual Mixed Finite Element Method) using lowest order Raviart-Thomas mixed finite element methods as discretization in space and Crank-Nicolson finite difference method as discretization in time. A new convergence result is obtained with convergence rate towards the ``velocity'' \(P(t)=-\nabla u(t)\) in \(L^2 (H_{\mathrm {div}}) \) under assumption that the solution is smooth. This error estimate improves and extends the one in [\textit{C. Johnson} and \textit{V. Thomee}, RAIRO, Anal. Numér. 15, 41--78 (1981; Zbl 0476.65074)] which states the error estimate for MFEM for parabolic equations towards the velocity in only the norm of \(L^\infty ((L^2)^d)\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 1484.65002].