Convergence of explicit p1 Finite-Element Solutions to Maxwell’s Equations

Paper in proceeding, 2020

This paper is devoted to the numerical validation of an explicit finite-difference scheme for the integration in time of Maxwell’s equations in terms of the sole electric field. The space discretization is performed by the standard P1 finite element method assorted with the treatment of the time-derivative term by a technique of the mass-lumping type. The rigorous reliability analysis of this numerical model was the subject of authors’ another paper [2]. More specifically such a study applies to the particular case where the electric permittivity has a constant value outside a sub-domain, whose closure does not intersect the boundary of the domain where the problem is defined. Our numerical experiments in two-dimension space certify that the convergence results previously derived for this approach are optimal, as long as the underlying CFL condition is satisfied.