Large-scale magnetostatic field calculation in finite element micromagnetics with H2-matrices

Abstract

Magnetostatic field calculations in micromagnetic simulations can be numerically expensive, particularly in the case of large-scale finite element simulations. The established finite element / boundary element method (FEM/BEM) by Fredkin & Koehler involves a densely populated matrix with unacceptable numerical costs for problems involving a large number of degrees of freedom $N$. By using hierarchical matrices of $\mathcal{H}^2$ type, we show that the memory requirements for the FEM/BEM method can be reduced dramatically, effectively converting the quadratic complexity $\mathcal{O}(N^2)$ of the problem to a linear one $\mathcal{O}(N)$. We obtain matrix size reductions of nearly $99\%$ in test cases with more than $10^6$ degrees of freedom, and we test the computed magnetostatic energy values by means of comparison with analytic values. The efficiency of the $\mathcal{H}^2$-matrix compression opens the way to large-scale magnetostatic field calculations in micromagnetic modeling, all while preserving the accuracy of the established FEM/BEM formalism.