Dispersion Analysis of CIP-FEM for Helmholtz Equation

Abstract: When solving the Helmholtz equation numerically, the accuracy of numerical solution deteriorates as the wave number $k$ increases, known as `pollution effect' which is directly related to the phase difference between the exact and numerical solutions, caused by the numerical dispersion. In this paper, we propose a dispersion analysis for the continuous interior penalty finite element method (CIP-FEM) and derive an explicit formula of the penalty parameter for the $p^{\rm th}$ order CIP-FEM on tensor product (Cartesian) meshes, with which the phase difference is reduced from $\mathcal{O}\big(k(kh)^{2p}\big)$ to $\mathcal{O}\big(k(kh)^{2p+2}\big)$. Extensive numerical tests show that the pollution error of the CIP-FE solution is also reduced by two orders in $kh$ with the same penalty parameter.