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Development and application of compatible discretizations of Maxwell’s equations. (English) Zbl 1135.78011

Arnold, Douglas N. (ed.) et al., Compatible spatial discretizations. Papers presented at IMA hot topics workshop: compatible spatial discretizations for partial differential equations, Minneapolis, MN, USA, May 11–15, 2004. New York, NY: Springer (ISBN 0-387-30916-0/hbk). The IMA Volumes in Mathematics and its Applications 142, 209-234 (2006).
Summary: We present the development and application of compatible finite element discretizations of electromagnetics problems derived from the time dependent, full wave Maxwell equations. We review the \(H\)(curl)-conforming finite element method, using the concepts and notations of differential forms as a theoretical framework. We chose this approach because it can handle complex geometries, it is free of spurious modes, it is numerically stable without the need for filtering or artificial diffusion, it correctly models the discontinuity of fields across material boundaries, and it can be very high order. Higher-order \(H\)(curl) and \(H\)(div) conforming basis functions are not unique and we have designed an extensible C++ framework that supports a variety of specific instantiations of these such as standard interpolatory bases, spectral bases, hierarchical bases, and semi-orthogonal bases. Virtually any electromagnetics problem that can be cast in the language of differential forms can be solved. using our framework. For time dependent problems a method-of-lines scheme is used where the Galerkin method reduces the PDE to a semi-discrete system of ODE’s, which are then integrated in time using finite difference methods. For time integration of wave equations we employ the unconditionally stable implicit Newmark-Beta method, as well as the high order energy conserving explicit Maxwell symplectic method; for diffusion equations, we employ a generalized Crank-Nicholson method. We conclude with computational examples from resonant cavity problems, time-dependent wave propagation problems, and transient eddy current problems, all obtained using the authors massively parallel computational electromagnetics code EMSolve.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 1097.65003].

MSC:

78M10 Finite element, Galerkin and related methods applied to problems in optics and electromagnetic theory
78A40 Waves and radiation in optics and electromagnetic theory

Software:

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