Dr. Kathryn Trapp, 25 September, 2006

  Discrete Div-Curl Systems

Abstract:  Div-curl systems are an important type of partial differential equation that arise in fluid dynamics and electro- and magnetostatics. On arbitrary domains (an airplane, say, as opposed to a sphere) it is rare to have an analytic solution. Instead one uses a numerical method to get an approximate solution. This talk will describe a broad class of methods for solving these systems on triangular meshes. These discretization methods rely on a discrete vector calculus structure (think Stokes' Theorem on triangles) to preserve the underlying physical properties in the equations and to prevent the occurrence of spurious solutions. This talk should be accessible to students who have taken multivariable calculus and linear algebra.


Biographical sketch: Kathryn Trapp received her PhD in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University with a focus in numerical methods for solving partial differential equations. She is currently Assistant Professor of Mathematics at University of Richmond and consults at Sandia National Laboratories.