High-order Finite Element--Integral Equation Coupling on Embedded Meshes

Abstract

This paper presents a high-order method for solving an interface problem for the Poisson equation on embedded meshes through a coupled finite element and integral equation approach. The method is capable of handling homogeneous or inhomogeneous jump conditions without modification and retains high-order convergence close to the embedded interface. We present finite element-integral equation (FE-IE) formulations for interior, exterior, and interface problems. The treatments of the exterior and interface problems are new. The resulting linear systems are solved through an iterative approach exploiting the second-kind nature of the IE operator combined with algebraic multigrid preconditioning for the FE part. Assuming smooth continuations of coefficients and right-hand-side data, we show error analysis supporting high-order accuracy. Numerical evidence further supports our claims of efficiency and high-order accuracy for smooth data.