Solvability of Discrete Helmholtz Equations
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We study the unique solvability of the discretized Helmholtz problem with Robin boundary conditions using a conforming Galerkin hp-finite element method. Well-posedness of the discrete equations is typically investigated by applying a compact perturbation to the continuous Helmholtz problem so that a "sufficiently rich" discretization results in a "sufficiently small" perturbation of the continuous problem and well-posedness is inherited via Fredholm's alternative. The qualitative notion "sufficiently rich", however, involves unknown constants and is only of asymptotic nature. Our paper is focussed on a fully discrete approach by mimicking the tools for proving well-posedness of the continuous problem directly on the discrete level. In this way, a computable criterion is derived which certifies discrete well-posedness without relying on an asymptotic perturbation argument. By using this novel approach we obtain a) new stability results for the hp-FEM for the Helmholtz problem b) examples for meshes such that the discretization becomes unstable (stiffness matrix is singular), and c) a simple checking Algorithm MOTZ "marching-of-the-zeros" which guarantees in an a posteriori way that a given mesh is certified for a stable Helmholtz discretization.
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