Estimates for the difference between exact and approximate solutions of parabolic equations on the basis of Poincaré inequalities for traces of functions on the boundary (Q517146)

This paper is concerned with the derivation of estimates for the distance between an arbitrary function in the admissible energy class and the exact solution of the parabolic equation \[ u_t-\operatorname{div}p+a\nabla u+\lambda^2 u=f \text{ in }\Omega\times (0,T), \] \[ p=A\nabla u \text{ in }\Omega\times (0,T), \] subject to initial and boundary conditions. The first part of the paper is concerned with functional a posteriori estimates for the error in the distance to the exact solution, which contain global constants in the Friedrichs inequality and the trace inequality. The constant computation is further reduced by decomposing the domain \(\Omega\) into a set of sufficiently simple convex subdomains and thus only local constants appear in the estimates. In the second part of the paper, a posteriori error estimates are discussed under much weaker constraints on the continuity of the auxiliary fluxes; this is done by replacing the pointwise continuity on the boundaries of subdomains with the continuity of the means.