An efficient finite element method for the quad-curl problem (Q6896368)

A regularization method is proposed in a quad-curl problem, which allows to completely ignore the divergence-free constraint. The regularization-based model presents several distinct advantages compared to the traditional saddle-point formulation; i) it is no longer subject to the divergence-free constraint, ii) it only requires one space to be discretized by finite elements composed of lower-order piecewise polynomials, iii) it is consistently well-posed and results in a symmetric, positive-definite system in the finite element discretization. This regularization method has been demonstrated to yield a uniformly stable finite element solution, independent of the regularization parameter as it decreases to zero. A comprehensive series of numerical examples is performed for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems, illustrating the efficiency of the method and to validate the theoretical results