Stability of Hodge decompositions in finite element spaces of differential forms in arbitrary dimension (Q2642285)

The author elaborates an interpretation of some mixed finite element spaces in terms of differential forms. He defines lowest order finite elements as particular finite dimensional spaces of compatible forms and checks that they correspond to simplicial cochains. He constructs a two-parameter family of regularization operators which is combined with standard interpolators in order to prove discrete Poincaré-Friedrichs inequalities and discrete Rellich compactness for finite element spaces of differential forms of arbitrary degree on compact manifolds of arbitrary dimension.