Robust exponential convergence of \(hp\)-FEM in balanced norms for singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equations (Q260144)

The \(hp\)-version of the finite element method (FEM) is considered here for a singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equation. While studying the convergence of the \(h\)-FEM in norms stronger than the energy norm, the analysis (see, for example [\textit{R. Lin} and \textit{M. Stynes}, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 50, No. 5, 2729--2743 (2012; Zbl 1260.65103)]) is performed in an \(\epsilon\)-weighted \(H^1\)-norm which is balanced in the sense that both the smooth part and the layer part are generally bounded away from zero uniformly in the singular perturbation parameter \(\epsilon\). The authors show here that the foregoing analysis can be extended to the \(hp\)-version FEM on spectral boundary layer meshes to give robust exponential convergence in the balanced norm. For some special cases studied earlier reference may be made to (see, for example [\textit{C. Schwab} and \textit{M. Suri}, Math. Comput. 65, No. 216, 1403--1429 (1996; Zbl 0853.65115)]).