The Mortar Element Method with Overlapping Subdomains (Q4787280)

The method is analyzed for the Laplace equation in a polygonal two-dimensional domain which is covered by overlapping polygonal subdomains. More than two subdomains may overlap and the grids in the overlapping zones do not match. The existence and uniqueness of the solution of a discrete problem which fulfills a matching condition (weak continuity at the subdomain boundaries) is proved. A finite element error estimate for the sum of the \(H^1\)-norms of the subdomains is proved. The bound in this estimates involves terms which depend on the maximal size of the subdomains and on the local mesh width. The proof is very technical. For the solution of the ill-conditioned linear system of equations, two additive Schwarz preconditioners are proposed and analyzed. One of them turns out to be not optimal but easy to implement whereas the second one is optimal. A support of the analytical results by numerical studies is not given in this paper.