Local Problems on Stars: A Posteriori Error Estimators, Convergence, and Performance

Math. Comp., 72 (2003), 1067--1097.

Pedro Morin
Instituto de Matematica Aplicada del Litoral
Guemes 3450
3000 Santa Fe, Argentina

pmorin@math.unl.edu.ar

Ricardo H. Nochetto
Department of Mathematics
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, MD 20742, USA

rhn@math.umd.edu

Kunibert G. Siebert
Institut fuer Angewandte Mathematik
Hermann-Herder-Str. 10
79104 Freiburg, Germany

kunibert@mathematik.uni-freiburg.de

Abstract

A new computable a posteriori error estimator is introduced, which relies on the solution of small discrete problems on stars. It exhibits built-in flux equilibration and is equivalent to the energy error up to data oscillation without any saturation assumption. A simple adaptive strategy is designed, which simultaneously reduces error and data oscillation, and is shown to converge without mesh preadaptation nor explicit knowledge of constants. Numerical experiments reveal a competitive performance, show extremely good effectivity indices, and yield quasi-optimal meshes.