Numerical Approximation of Fractional Powers of Regularly Accretive Operators

We study the numerical approximation of fractional powers of accretive operators in this paper. Namely, if A is the accretive operator associated with an accretive sesquilinear form A(·, ·) defined on a Hilbert space V contained in L(Ω), we approximate A for β ∈ (0, 1). The fractional powers are defined in terms of the so-called Balakrishnan integral formula. Given a finite element approximation space Vh ⊂ V, A −β is approximated by A h πh where Ah is the operator associated with the form A(·, ·) restricted to Vh and πh is the L (Ω)-projection onto Vh. We first provide error estimates for (A −A h πh)f in Sobolev norms with index in [0,1] for appropriate f . These results depend on elliptic regularity properties of variational solutions involving the form A(·, ·) and are valid for the case of less than full elliptic regularity. We also construct and analyze an exponentially convergent SINC quadrature approximation to the Balakrishnan integral defining A h πhf . Finally, the results of numerical computations illustrating the proposed method are given. Acknowledgment The first author was partially supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant DMS-1254618 while the second was partially supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant DMS-1216551. Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 778433368. E-mail address: [email protected] Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 778433368. E-mail address: [email protected] 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 65N30, 35S15, 65N15, 65R20, 65N12.