Smooth approximations of the Aleksandrov solution of the Monge-Ampère equation (Q2341037)

The author considers the Dirichlet problem for the elliptic nonlinear Monge-Ampère equation \[ \det D^2u= f\text{ in }\Omega,\quad u|_{\partial \Omega}=g,\quad\Omega \subset \mathbb R^d,\quad d = 2,3,\,\Omega\text{ convex}, \partial \Omega\text{ boundary of }\Omega,\tag{1} \] where \(D ^2 u = \left(\frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x_i \partial x_j}\right)_{i,j = 1(1)d}\) is the Hessian of \(u\) and \(f \geqq 0\) and \(g \in C(\partial \Omega)\) are given functions. \(g\) is assumed to be convex on any line element of \(\partial \Omega\). \( \partial x_i , \partial x_j\) are independent variables of the dependent variable \(u\). In his previous work [``Pseudo transient continuation and time marching methods for Monge-Ampére type equations'', \url{arXiv:1301.5891}] the author showed that the two methods numerically converge to a strictly convex solution of an introduced discrete variational formulation of (1) with \(C^1\) conforming approximations for smooth and non-smooth solutions of the continuous problem using a spline element discretization. Theoretically, the convergence was proven in the case of smooth solutions only. \textit{A. D. Aleksandrov} [Vestn. Leningr. Univ., Mat. Mekh. Astron. 13, No. 1, 5--24 (1958; Zbl 0114.30202)] introduced generalized solutions of the Monge-Ampère equation, now called Aleksandrov solutions, and proved the existence and uniqueness of the solutions to the corresponding Dirichlet problem. Inspired by the numerical results of his earlier article [loc. cit.] the author proves now the following statement: ``For a quasi-uniform triangulation of a convex bounded domain, there exist piecewise polynomial, strictly convex, \(C^1\) functions, that are Aleksandrov solutions of the Monge-Ampére equations''. Moreover, the Aleksandrov theory is extended to (i) right-hand sides that are only locally integrable, (ii) to convex bounded domains, which are not necessarily strictly convex. That means, the convergence of the numerical solution is now also proven for piecewise smooth functions.