On nonnegativity preservation in finite element methods for subdiffusion equations

Jin, Bangti; Lazarov, Raytcho; Thomée, Vidar; Zhou, Zhi

doi:10.1090/mcom/3167

On nonnegativity preservation in finite element methods for subdiffusion equations

Authors: Bangti Jin, Raytcho Lazarov, Vidar Thomée and Zhi Zhou
Journal: Math. Comp. 86 (2017), 2239-2260
MSC (2010): Primary 65M12, 65M60
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/mcom/3167
Published electronically: December 21, 2016
MathSciNet review: 3647957
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Abstract: We consider three types of subdiffusion models, namely single-term, multi-term and distributed order fractional diffusion equations, for which the maximum-principle holds and which, in particular, preserve nonnegativity. Hence the solution is nonnegative for nonnegative initial data. Following earlier work on the heat equation, our purpose is to study whether this property is inherited by certain spatially semidiscrete and fully discrete piecewise linear finite element methods, including the standard Galerkin method, the lumped mass method and the finite volume element method. It is shown that, as for the heat equation, when the mass matrix is nondiagonal, nonnegativity is not preserved for small time or time-step, but may reappear after a positivity threshold. For the lumped mass method nonnegativity is preserved if and only if the triangulation in the finite element space is of Delaunay type. Numerical experiments illustrate and complement the theoretical results.

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