Numerical quadratic energy minimization bound to convex constraints in thin-film micromagnetics (Q453326)

The authors analyze the reduced model for thin-film devices in stationary micromagnetics proposed in [\textit{A. DeSimone} et al., Proc. R. Soc. Lond., Ser. A, Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 457, No. 2016, 2983--2991 (2001; Zbl 1065.74028)]. First, the authors present a general convergence result for penalty methods and then they apply the numerical method for the minimization problem in the simulation of thin-film micromagnetics. They introduce an appropriate functional framework and prove well-posedness of the model. The scheme for the numerical approximation is based in the conforming discretization of the energy space using Raviart-Thomas finite elements. The nonlinear but convex side constraint is treated with a penalty method. The authors prove the convergence of the method as the discretization and the penalty parameter vanishes. The behavior of the algorithm is illustrated by some numerical experiments.