Postprocessing mixed finite element methods for solving Cahn-Hilliard equation: methods and error analysis (Q292572)

The authors are concerned with the study of a postprocessing technique for mixed finite element methods in solving the Cahn-Hilliard equation subject to the no flux boundary conditions. Actually, on a coarser mesh they first compute the mixed finite element approximations until a fixed time at which a higher accuracy solution is required. Then, at that fixed time, the approximations are postprocessed by solving two decoupled linear elliptic (Poisson) problems on a finer grid (or higher-order space). Furthermore, they prove the main result concerning the error estimates and analyze the superconvergence for the concentration and for the chemical potential. With this algorithm they carry out a numerical experiment for a problem involving a fairly smooth solution decaying exponentially in time. Moreover, they claim numerical stability of their fully (implicit) discretized scheme on a surprisingly short time span. It is rather strange that they use only a quite elementary, i.e., backward Euler scheme, in order to merge in time and do not try more efficient schemes. However, the errors displayed for such a solution are not impressive.