The propagation of the action potential in the heart chambers is accurately described by the Bidomain model, which is commonly accepted and used in the specialistic literature. However, its mathematical structure of a degenerate parabolic system entails high computational costs in the numerical solution of the associated linear system. Domain decomposition methods are a natural way to reduce computational costs, and Optimized Schwarz Methods have proven in the recent years their effectiveness in accelerating the convergence of such algorithms. The latter are based on interface matching conditions more efficient than the classical Dirichlet or Neumann ones. In this paper we analyze an Optimized Schwarz approach for the numerical solution of the Bidomain problem. We assess the convergence of the iterative method by means of Fourier analysis, and we investigate the parameter optimization in the interface conditions. Numerical results in 2D and 3D are given to show the effectiveness of the method.

We propose a Lagrangian approach to deriving energy-preserving finite difference schemes for the Euler–Lagrange partial differential equations. Noether’s theorem states that the symmetry of time translation of Lagrangians yields the energy conservation law. We introduce a unique viewpoint on this theorem: “the symmetry of time translation of Lagrangians derives the Euler–Lagrange equation and the energy conservation law, simultaneously.” The proposed method is a combination of a discrete counter part of this statement and the discrete gradient method. It is also shown that the symmetry of space translation derives momentum-preserving schemes. Finally, we discuss the existence of discrete local conservation laws.

The aim of this paper is to analyze a formulation of the eddy current problem in terms of a time-primitive of the electric field in a bounded domain with input current intensities or voltage drops as source data. To this end, we introduce a Lagrange multiplier to impose the divergence-free condition in the dielectric domain. Thus, we obtain a time-dependent weak mixed formulation leading to a degenerate parabolic problem which we prove is well-posed. We propose a finite element method for space discretization based on Nédélec edge elements for the main variable and standard finite elements for the Lagrange multiplier, for which we obtain error estimates. Then, we introduce a backward Euler scheme for time discretization and prove error estimates for the fully discrete problem, too. Finally, the method is applied to solve a couple of test problems.

We address the issue of parameter variations in POD approximations of time-dependent problems, without any specific restriction on the form of parameter dependence. Considering a parabolic model problem, we propose a POD construction strategy allowing us to obtain some a priori error estimates controlled by the POD remainder – in the construction procedure – and some parameter-wise interpolation errors for the model solutions. We provide a thorough numerical assessment of this strategy with the FitzHugh − Nagumo 1D model. Finally, we give detailed illustrations of the approach in two parameter estimation applications, the first in a variational estimation framework with the FitzHugh − Nagumo model, and the second with a beating heart mechanical model for which we employ a sequential estimation method to characterize model parameters using real image data in a clinical case.

The numerical approximation of parametric partial differential equations is a computational challenge, in particular when the number of involved parameter is large. This paper considers a model class of second order, linear, parametric, elliptic PDEs on a bounded domain D with diffusion coefficients depending on the parameters in an affine manner. For such models, it was shown in [9, 10] that under very weak assumptions on the diffusion coefficients, the entire family of solutions to such equations can be simultaneously approximated in the Hilbert space V = H01(D) by multivariate sparse polynomials in the parameter vector y with a controlled number N of terms. The convergence rate in terms of N does not depend on the number of parameters in V, which may be arbitrarily large or countably infinite, thereby breaking the curse of dimensionality. However, these approximation results do not describe the concrete construction of these polynomial expansions, and should therefore rather be viewed as benchmark for the convergence analysis of numerical methods. The present paper presents an adaptive numerical algorithm for constructing a sequence of sparse polynomials that is proved to converge toward the solution with the optimal benchmark rate. Numerical experiments are presented in large parameter dimension, which confirm the effectiveness of the adaptive approach.

Consider time-harmonic electromagnetic wave scattering from a biperiodic dielectric structure mounted on a perfectly conducting plate in three dimensions. Given that uniqueness of solution holds, existence of solution follows from a well-known Fredholm framework for the variational formulation of the problem in a suitable Sobolev space. In this paper, we derive a Rellich identity for a solution to this variational problem under suitable smoothness conditions on the material parameter. Under additional non-trapping assumptions on the material parameter, this identity allows us to establish uniqueness of solution for all positive wave numbers.

Space-time approximations of the FitzHugh–Nagumo system of coupled semi-linear parabolic PDEs are examined. The schemes under consideration are discontinuous in time but conforming in space and of arbitrary order. Stability estimates are presented in the natural energy norms and at arbitrary times, under minimal regularity assumptions. Space-time error estimates of arbitrary order are derived, provided that the natural parabolic regularity is present. Various physical parameters appearing in the model are tracked and numerical examples are presented.

Discrete-velocity approximations represent a popular way for computing the Boltzmann collision operator. The direct numerical evaluation of such methods involve a prohibitive cost, typically O(N2d + 1) where d is the dimension of the velocity space. In this paper, following the ideas introduced in [C. Mouhot and L. Pareschi, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Sér. I Math. 339 (2004) 71–76, C. Mouhot and L. Pareschi, Math. Comput. 75 (2006) 1833–1852], we derive fast summation techniques for the evaluation of discrete-velocity schemes which permits to reduce the computational cost from O(N2d + 1) to O(N̅dNd log2N), N̅ ≪ N, with almost no loss of accuracy.

We consider here the Interior Penalty Discontinuous Galerkin (IPDG) discretization of the wave equation. We show how to derive the optimal penalization parameter involved in this method in the case of regular meshes. Moreover, we provide necessary stability conditions of the global scheme when IPDG is coupled with the classical Leap–Frog scheme for the time discretization. Numerical experiments illustrate the fact that these conditions are also sufficient.

We analyze a numerical model for the Signorini unilateral contact, based on the mortar method, in the quadratic finite element context. The mortar frame enables one to use non-matching grids and brings facilities in the mesh generation of different components of a complex system. The convergence rates we state here are similar to those already obtained for the Signorini problem when discretized on conforming meshes. The matching for the unilateral contact driven by mortars preserves then the proper accuracy of the quadratic finite elements. This approach has already been used and proved to be reliable for the unilateral contact problems even for large deformations. We provide however some numerical examples to support the theoretical predictions.

We consider an asymptotic preserving numerical scheme initially proposed by F. Filbet and S. Jin [J. Comput. Phys. 229 (2010)] and G. Dimarco and L. Pareschi [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 49 (2011) 2057–2077] in the context of nonlinear and stiff kinetic equations. Here, we propose a convergence analysis of such a scheme for the approximation of a system of transport equations with a nonlinear source term, for which the asymptotic limit is given by a conservation law. We investigate the convergence of the approximate solution (uεh, vεh) to a nonlinear relaxation system, where ε > 0 is a physical parameter and h represents the discretization parameter. Uniform convergence with respect to ε and h is proved and error estimates are also obtained. Finally, several numerical tests are performed to illustrate the accuracy and efficiency of such a scheme.

We consider the development and analysis of local discontinuous Galerkin methods for fractional diffusion problems in one space dimension, characterized by having fractional derivatives, parameterized by β ∈[1, 2]. After demonstrating that a classic approach fails to deliver optimal order of convergence, we introduce a modified local numerical flux which exhibits optimal order of convergence 𝒪(hk + 1) uniformly across the continuous range between pure advection (β = 1) and pure diffusion (β = 2). In the two classic limits, known schemes are recovered. We discuss stability and present an error analysis for the space semi-discretized scheme, which is supported through a few examples.

In this paper, we propose a numerical method to solve stochastic elliptic interface problems with random interfaces. Shape calculus is first employed to derive the shape-Taylor expansion in the framework of the asymptotic perturbation approach. Given the mean field and the two-point correlation function of the random interface, we can thus quantify the mean field and the variance of the random solution in terms of certain orders of the perturbation amplitude by solving a deterministic elliptic interface problem and its tensorized counterpart with respect to the reference interface. Error estimates are derived for the interface-resolved finite element approximation in both, the physical and the stochastic dimension. In particular, a fast finite difference scheme is proposed to compute the variance of random solutions by using a low-rank approximation based on the pivoted Cholesky decomposition. Numerical experiments are presented to validate and quantify the method.

We consider a two-dimensional quantum waveguide composed of two semi-strips of width 1 and 1 − ε, where ε > 0 is a small real parameter, i.e. the waveguide is gently converging. The width of the junction zone for the semi-strips is 1 + O(√ε). We will present a sufficient condition for the existence of a weakly coupled bound state below π2, the lower bound of the continuous spectrum. This eigenvalue in the discrete spectrum is unique and its asymptotics is constructed and justified when ε → 0+.

We consider the solution of second order elliptic PDEs in Rd with inhomogeneous Dirichlet data by means of an h–adaptive FEM with fixed polynomial order p ∈ N. As model example serves the Poisson equation with mixed Dirichlet–Neumann boundary conditions, where the inhomogeneous Dirichlet data are discretized by use of an H1 / 2–stable projection, for instance, the L2–projection for p = 1 or the Scott–Zhang projection for general p ≥ 1. For error estimation, we use a residual error estimator which includes the Dirichlet data oscillations. We prove that each H1 / 2–stable projection yields convergence of the adaptive algorithm even with quasi–optimal convergence rate. Numerical experiments with the Scott–Zhang projection conclude the work.