The $p$- and $hp$-versions of the virtual element method for elliptic eigenvalue problems

Abstract: We discuss the $p$- and the $hp$-versions of the virtual element method for the approximation of eigenpairs of elliptic operators with a potential term on polygonal meshes. An application of this model is provided by the Schr\"odinger equation with a pseudo-potential term. We present in details the analysis of the p-version of the method, proving exponential convergence in the case of analytic eigenfunctions. The theoretical results are supplied with a wide set of experiments. We also show numerically that, in the case of eigenfunctions with finite Sobolev regularity, an exponential approximation of the eigenvalues in terms of the cubic root of the number of degrees of freedom can be obtained by employing $hp$-refinements. Importantly, the geometric flexibility of polygonal meshes is exploited in the construction of the $hp$-spaces.