Hierarchical Riesz bases for \(H^{s}(\Omega),\;1 < s < \frac{5}{2}\) (Q853526)

This interesting paper deals with the construction of hierarchical Riesz bases for the Sobolev spaces \(H^s(\Omega)\) for \(s\in (1,\,{5 \over 2})\) on arbitrary polygonal domains \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^2\). The starting point for this construction is the Lagrange basis for \(C^1\) piecewise cubics which is related to the Bernstein-Bézier basis used in \textit{O. Davydov} and \textit{F. Zeilfelder} [Adv. Comput. Math. 21, 223--271 (2004; Zbl 1065.41017)]. In contrast to \textit{W. Dahmen, P. Oswald}, and \textit{X. Shi} [J. Comput. Appl. Math. 51, 37--56 (1994; Zbl 0805.65047)], the new hierarchical Riesz bases are of Lagrange instead of Hermite type and the range of stability is extended from \(s\in (2,\,{5 \over 2})\) to \(s\in (1,\, {5 \over 2})\). Since the latter range includes \(s=2\), these hierarchical bases can be used to solve boundary value problems for fourth-order elliptic equations, where the corresponding stiffness matrices are uniformly well-conditioned.