Error analysis of the L² least‐squares finite element method for incompressible inviscid rotational flows

Abstract

In this article we analyze the L 2 least-squares finite element approximations to the incompressible inviscid rotational flow problem, which is recast into the velocity-vorticity-pressure formulation. The least-squares functional is defined in terms of the sum of the squared L 2 norms of the residual equations over a suitable product function space. We first derive a coercivity type a priori estimate for the first-order system problem that will play the crucial role in the error analysis. We then show that the method exhibits an optimal rate of convergence in the H 1 norm for velocity and pressure and a suboptimal rate of convergence in the L 2 norm for vorticity. A numerical example in two dimensions is presented, which confirms the theoretical error estimates.