Finite element approximation for time-dependent diffusion with measure-valued source (Q695292)

Some convergence results for a finite element approximation of time-dependent diffusion problems with measure-valued source terms are given. This may occur for example when calcium flow in heart cells is modelled where the source terms can be represented as Dirac delta distributions. The authors consider both the parabolic time-dependent problem and the corresponding steady-state problem. They first prove a convergence error estimate for finite-element-space-discretization for the latter case and derive the corresponding convergence order. Furthermore, this estimate is extended to the parabolic time-dependent problem. Finally, a few numerical results for the time-dependent linear parabolic case to validate the stated convergence orders are shown.