A Posteriori Analysis for Space-Time, discontinuous in time Galerkin approximations for parabolic equations in a variable domain

Abstract

This paper presents an a posteriori error analysis for the discontinuous in time space-time scheme proposed by Jamet for the heat equation in multi-dimensional, non-cylindrical domains [25]. Using a Cl ement-type interpolant, we prove abstract a posteriori error bounds for the numerical error. Furthermore, in the case of two-dimensional spatial domains we transform the problem into an equivalent one, of parabolic type, with space-time dependent coe cients but posed on a cylindrical domain. We formulate a discontinuous in time space{time scheme and prove a posteriori error bounds of optimal order. The a priori estimates of [19] for general parabolic initial and boundary value problems are used in the derivation of the upper bound. Our lower bound coincides with that of Picasso [36], proposed for adaptive, Runge-Kutta finite element methods for linear parabolic problems. Our theoretical results are verified by numerical experiments.