$hp$-optimal interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods for the biharmonic problem

TL;DR

This paper establishes $hp$-optimal error estimates for interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods applied to the biharmonic problem, covering various mesh types and including numerical validation.

Contribution

It provides the first proof of $hp$-optimal error estimates for IPDG methods solving the biharmonic problem with detailed analysis and numerical validation.

Findings

$hp$-optimal error estimates are proven for IPDG methods.

Numerical experiments confirm theoretical predictions.

$p$-suboptimality occurs with singular boundary conditions.

Abstract

We prove $hp$-optimal error estimates for interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods (IPDG) for the biharmonic problem with homogeneous essential boundary conditions. We consider tensor product-type meshes in two and three dimensions, and triangular meshes in two dimensions. An essential ingredient in the analysis is the construction of a global $H^2$ piecewise polynomial approximants with $hp$-optimal approximation properties over the given meshes. The $hp$-optimality is also discussed for $\mathcal C^0$-IPDG in two and three dimensions, and the stream formulation of the Stokes problem in two dimensions. Numerical experiments validate the theoretical predictions and reveal that $p$-suboptimality occurs in presence of singular essential boundary conditions.