A posteriori error control for stochastic Galerkin FEM with high-dimensional random parametric PDEs

Abstract

PDEs with random data are investigated and simulated in the field of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ), where uncertainties or (planned) variations of coefficients, forces, domains and boundary con- ditions in differential equations formally depend on random events with respect to a pre-determined probability distribution. The discretization of these PDEs typically leads to high-dimensional (determin- istic) systems, where in addition to the physical space also the (often much larger) parameter space has to be considered. A proven technique for this task is the Stochastic Galerkin Finite Element Method (SGFEM), for which a review of the state of the art is provided. Moreover, important concepts and results are summarized. A special focus lies on the a posteriori error estimation and the derivation of an adaptive algorithm that controls all discretization parameters. In addition to an explicit residual based error estimator, also an equilibration estimator with guaranteed bounds is discussed. Under cer- tain mild assumptions it can be shown that the successive refinement produced by such an adaptive algorithm leads to a sequence of approximations with guaranteed convergence to the true solution. Nu- merical examples illustrate the practical behavior for some common benchmark problems. Additionally, an adaptive algorithm for a problem with a non-affine coefficient is shown. By transforming the original PDE a convection-diffusion problem is obtained, which can be treated similarly to the standard affine case.