A Weak Galerkin Finite Element Method for A Type of Fourth Order Problem Arising From Fluorescence Tomography

Abstract

In this paper, a new and efficient numerical algorithm by using weak Galerkin (WG) finite element methods is proposed for a type of fourth order problem arising from fluorescence tomography(FT). Fluorescence tomography is an emerging, in vivo non-invasive 3-D imaging technique which reconstructs images that characterize the distribution of molecules that are tagged by fluorophores. Weak second order elliptic operator and its discrete version are introduced for a class of discontinuous functions defined on a finite element partition of the domain consisting of general polygons or polyhedra. An error estimate of optimal order is derived in an $H^2$-equivalent norm for the WG finite element solutions. Error estimates in the usual $L^2$ norm are established, yielding optimal order of convergence for all the WG finite element algorithms except the one corresponding to the lowest order (i.e., piecewise quadratic elements). Some numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the numerical scheme.