A stabilized semi-implicit Euler gauge-invariant method for the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations (Q2316257)

This paper proposes a stabilized semi-implicit Euler gauge-invariant scheme for the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equations in the two-dimensional space. At each time step, the proposed scheme only needs to solve two linear systems, and thus it efficiently reduces the computational cost compared to the solution of a coupled nonlinear system required by the classic fully nonlinear approach. Moreover, the proposed scheme unconditionally preserves the point-wise boundedness of the unknown scalar complex function \(\Psi\) (the order parameter) and also satisfies the energy stability property under a very relaxed condition. The authors use the proposed method to study the vortex pattern in non-convex superconductors, answering an interesting question whether the gauge invariant schemes are still feasible for non-convex domains. For the first time, a connection between the gauge-invariant scheme and the lowest order rectangular Nédélec element in space is established. It is shown that the proposed scheme under the zero electric potential gauge is equivalent to a mass-lumped version of the lowest order rectangular Nédélec edge-element approximation and the scheme under Lorentz gauge can be viewed as a mass-lumped version of a mixed finite element method. For the non-convex polygon, the exact solution for the real vector magnetic potential \(A\) in the TDGL equations only belongs to \(H^s(\Omega)\) for \(1/2<s<1\), where \(\Omega\) is a bounded two-dimensional domain. It is well known that the \(H(\mathrm{curl})\) conforming Nédélec edge element can solve for the curl curl problem correctly on non-convex geometries, which has attracted much attention and been successfully used for simulating electromagnetics. Thus, the equivalence of these two approximations implies that the proposed schemes could also effectively solve the TDGL equations on non-convex domains. Intensive numerical experiments are also tested to investigate the performance of the proposed scheme. The numerical results show that the stabilized semi-implicit gauge invariant schemes under both zero-electric potential gauge and Lorentz gauge can provide accurate vortex pattern simulations of superconductors on non-convex and multi-connected domains. First, this paper proposes the stabilized semi-implicit Euler gauge-invariant scheme for solving the TDGL equations and its forms under the zero-electric potential gauge and the Lorentz gauge, respectively. Then, the authors prove that the proposed scheme satisfies the point-wise boundedness unconditionally and the energy stability. It is shown that the proposed scheme is unconditionally point-wise bounded when the stabilizing parameter \(\alpha\geq 2\). The energy stability is established for the stabilized semi-implicit zero-electric potential gauge scheme for solving the TDGL equations. The equivalences of the unconditional point-wise boundedness and the energy stability to the lowest-order rectangular Nédélec edge finite element approximation and a mass-lumped mixed finite element method, respectively, are discussed. A key observation is that the discretization for \(A\) in the zero-electric potential gauge scheme can be interpreted within the framework of the finite element method using the Nédélec edge element. Earlier, a class of mixed finite element methods was investigated for the Lorentz gauge TDGL equations, where the basic idea was to introduce \(\Phi=-\operatorname{div}A\) (\(\Phi\) is the electric potential) as an extra variable. Then, Lagrange elements and Nédélec edge elements are used to approximate \(\Phi\) and \(A\), respectively. To incorporate with the current rectangular mesh, the authors consider a mixed method based on the lowest-order bilinear element and lowest-order rectangular Nédélec edge element. Then, various numerical examples on convex and non-convex domains are presented and the results demonstrate that the proposed schemes are effective and provide correct vortex patterns for superconductors in all cases. Some numerical experiments are provided on vortex motion simulations for convex, non-convex and multi-connected domains to test the performance of the stabilized semi-implicit zero-electric potential gauge scheme for solving the TDGL equations and the stabilized semi-implicit Lorentz gauge scheme for solving the TDGL equations. It is set the stabilizing parameter \(\alpha=2\) in all tests. Although the method considered in the paper is for the two-dimensional superconductivity model, this study provides a fundamental understanding of the gauge-invariant finite difference approximation and could be generalized to the three-dimensional space problems and more general settings.