An algebraic preconditioner for the exactly divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method for Stokes

TL;DR

This paper introduces an algebraic preconditioner for a divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin method for Stokes, which is efficient, robust, and easily extendable to Navier-Stokes problems.

Contribution

The paper develops a simple, algebraic preconditioner for an $H({ m div})$-conforming DG discretization of Stokes, enabling efficient iterative solutions and extension to Navier-Stokes.

Findings

Preconditioner is optimal in mesh size $h$.

Preconditioner is super robust up to 5th order elements.

Effective in both 2D and 3D problems.

Abstract

We present an optimal preconditioner for the exactly divergence-free discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretization of Cockburn, Kanschat, and Sch\"otzau [J. Sci. Comput., 31 (2007), pp. 61--73] and Wang and Ye [SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 45 (2007), pp. 1269--1286] for the Stokes problem. This DG method uses finite elements that use an $H({\rm div})$-conforming basis, thereby significantly complicating its solution by iterative methods. Several preconditioners for this Stokes discretization have been developed, but each is based on specialized solvers or decompositions, and do not offer a clear framework to generalize to Navier--Stokes. To avoid requiring custom solvers, we hybridize the $H({\rm div})$-conforming finite element so that the velocity lives in a standard $L^2$-DG space, and present a simple algebraic preconditioner for the extended hybridized system. The proposed preconditioner is optimal in $h$, super robust in element order (demonstrated up to 5th order), effective in 2d and 3d, and only relies on standard relaxation and algebraic multigrid methods available in many packages. The hybridization also naturally extends to Navier--Stokes, providing a potential pathway to effective black-box preconditioners for exactly divergence-free DG discretizations of Navier--Stokes.