A staggered discontinuous Galerkin method for a class of nonlinear elliptic equations

Abstract

In this paper, we present a staggered discontinuous Galerkin (SDG) method for a class of nonlinear elliptic equations in two dimensions. The SDG methods have some distinctive advantages, and have been successfully applied to a wide range of problems including Maxwell equations, acoustic wave equation, elastodynamics and incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Among many advantages of the SDG methods, one can apply a local post-processing technique to the solution, and obtain superconvergence. We will analyze the stability of the method and derive a priori error estimates. We solve the resulting nonlinear system using the Newton's method, and the numerical results confirm the theoretical rates of convergence and superconvergence.