We present a simple solver of the fractional Laplacian based on the hypersingular integral representation. Through singularity subtraction, we obtain a regularized integrand that is amenable to the trapezoidal rule with equispaced nodes. The resulting quadrature scheme gives a discrete operator on a regular grid that is translation-invariant and thus can be applied quickly with the fast Fourier transform. For discretizations of problems related to space-fractional diffusion on bounded domains, we observe that the underlying linear system can be efficiently solved via preconditioned Krylov methods with a preconditioner based on the finite-difference (non-fractional) Laplacian. We show numerical results illustrating the error of our simple scheme as well the efficiency of our preconditioning approach, both for the elliptic (steady-state) fractional diffusion problem and the time-dependent problem.
@cite_30: An equation for a fractional power of the second-order elliptic operator is considered. It is solved numerically using a time-dependent problem for a pseudo-parabolic equation. For the auxiliary Cauchy problem, the standard two-level schemes are applied. Stability conditions are obtained for the fully discrete schemes under the consideration. The numerical results are presented for a model of two-dimensional problem with a fractional power of an elliptic operator. The dependence of accuracy on grids in time and in space is studied.
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@cite_14: This paper presents regularity results and associated high order numerical methods for one-dimensional fractional-Laplacian boundary-value problems. On the basis of a factorization of solutions as a product of a certain edge-singular weight ω times a "regular" unknown, a characterization of the regularity of solutions is obtained in terms of the smoothness of the corresponding right-hand sides. In particular, for right-hand sides which are analytic in a Bernstein ellipse, analyticity in the same Bernstein ellipse is obtained for the regular'' unknown. Moreover, a sharp Sobolev regularity result is presented which completely characterizes the co-domain of the fractional-Laplacian operator in terms of certain weighted Sobolev spaces introduced in (Babuska and Guo, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 2002). The present theoretical treatment relies on a full eigendecomposition for a certain weighted integral operator in terms of the Gegenbauer polynomial basis. The proposed Gegenbauer-based Nystrom numerical method for the fractional-Laplacian Dirichlet problem, further, is significantly more accurate and efficient than other algorithms considered previously. The sharp error estimates presented in this paper indicate that the proposed algorithm is spectrally accurate, with convergence rates that only depend on the smoothness of the right-hand side. In particular, convergence is exponentially fast (resp. faster than any power of the mesh-size) for analytic (resp. infinitely smooth) right-hand sides. The properties of the algorithm are illustrated with a variety of numerical results.
@cite_4: In this note we set up the elliptic and the parabolic Dirichlet problem for linear nonlocal operators. As opposed to the classical case of second order differential operators, here the “boundary data” are prescribed on the complement of a given bounded set. We formulate the problem in the classical framework of Hilbert spaces and prove unique solvability using standard techniques like the Fredholm alternative.
@cite_8: We present three schemes for the numerical approximation of fractional diffusion, which build on different definitions of such a non-local process. The first method is a PDE approach that applies to the spectral definition and exploits the extension to one higher dimension. The second method is the integral formulation and deals with singular non-integrable kernels. The third method is a discretization of the Dunford–Taylor formula. We discuss pros and cons of each method, error estimates, and document their performance with a few numerical experiments.
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@cite_10: In this paper we survey some results on the Dirichlet problem ( Lu = f in u = g in R n n for nonlocal operators of the form Lu(x) = PV Z Rn u(x) u(x + y) K(y)dy: We start from the very basics, proving existence of solutions, maximum principles, and constructing some useful barriers. Then, we focus on the regularity properties of solutions, both in the interior and on the boundary of the domain. In order to include some natural operators L in the regularity theory, we do not assume any regularity on the kernels. This leads to some interesting features that are purely nonlocal, in the sense that they have no analogue for local equations. We hope that this survey will be useful for both novel and more experienced researchers in the eld. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classication: 47G20, 60G52, 35B65.
@cite_0: The fractional Laplacian in R^d has multiple equivalent characterizations. Moreover, in bounded domains, boundary conditions must be incorporated in these characterizations in mathematically distinct ways, and there is currently no consensus in the literature as to which definition of the fractional Laplacian in bounded domains is most appropriate for a given application. The Riesz (or integral) definition, for example, admits a nonlocal boundary condition, where the value of a function u(x) must be prescribed on the entire exterior of the domain in order to compute its fractional Laplacian. In contrast, the spectral definition requires only the standard local boundary condition. These differences, among others, lead us to ask the question: "What is the fractional Laplacian?" We compare several commonly used definitions of the fractional Laplacian (the Riesz, spectral, directional, and horizon-based nonlocal definitions), and we use a quantitative approach to identify their practical differences. In this work, we provide a quantitative assessment of new numerical methods as well as available state-of-the-art methods for discretizing the fractional Laplacian, and we present new results on the differences in features, regularity, and boundary behaviors of solutions to equations posed with these different definitions. We present stochastic interpretations and demonstrate the equivalence between some recent formulations. Through our efforts, we aim to further engage the research community in open problems and assist practitioners in identifying the most appropriate definition and computational approach to use for their mathematical models in addressing anomalous transport in diverse applications.
@cite_43: Approximations of solutions of fractional Laplacian equations on bounded domains are considered. Such equations allow global interactions between points separated by arbitrarily large distances. Two approximations are introduced. First, interactions are localized so that only points less than some specified distance, referred to as the interaction radius, are allowed to interact. The resulting truncated problem is a special case of a more general nonlocal diffusion problem. The second approximation is the spatial discretization of the related nonlocal diffusion problem. A recently developed abstract framework for asymptotically compatible schemes is applied to prove convergence results for solutions of the truncated and discretized problem to the solutions of the fractional Laplacian problems. Intermediate results also provide new convergence results for the nonlocal diffusion problem. Special attention is paid to limiting behaviors as the interaction radius increases and the spatial grid size decreases, regardless of how these parameters may or may not be dependent. In particular, we show that conforming Galerkin finite element approximations of the nonlocal diffusion equation are always asymptotically compatible schemes for the corresponding fractional Laplacian model as the interaction radius increases and the grid size decreases. The results are developed with minimal regularity assumptions on the solution and are applicable to general domains and general geometric meshes with no restriction on the space dimension and with data that are only required to be square integrable. Furthermore, our results also solve an open conjecture given in the literature about the convergence of numerical solutions on a fixed mesh as the interaction radius increases.
@cite_19: We develop an exponentially accurate fractional spectral collocation method for solving steady-state and time-dependent fractional PDEs (FPDEs). We first introduce a new family of interpolants, called fractional Lagrange interpolants, which satisfy the Kronecker delta property at collocation points. We perform such a construction following a spectral theory recently developed in [M. Zayernouri and G. E. Karniadakis, J. Comput. Phys., 47 (2013), pp. 2108--2131] for fractional Sturm--Liouville eigenproblems. Subsequently, we obtain the corresponding fractional differentiation matrices, and we solve a number of linear FODEs in addition to linear and nonlinear FPDEs to investigate the numerical performance of the fractional collocation method. We first examine space-fractional advection-diffusion problem and generalized space-fractional multiterm FODEs. Next, we solve FPDEs, including the time- and space-fractional advection-diffusion equation, time- and space-fractional multiterm FPDEs, and finally the space...
@cite_15: The operator square root of the Laplacian (−△) 1 2 can be obtained from the harmonic extension problem to the upper half space as the operator that maps the Dirichlet boundary condition to the Neumann condition. In this paper we obtain similar characterizations for general fractional powers of the Laplacian and other integro-differential operators. From those characterizations we derive some properties of these integro-differential equations from purely local arguments in the extension problems.
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@cite_17: We propose a new nonconforming finite element algorithm to approximate the solution to the elliptic problem involving the fractional Laplacian. We first derive an integral representation of the bilinear form corresponding to the variational problem. The numerical approximation of the action of the corresponding stiffness matrix consists of three steps: (i) apply a sinc quadrature scheme to approximate the integral representation by a finite sum where each term involves the solution of an elliptic partial differential equation defined on the entire space, (ii) truncate each elliptic problem to a bounded domain, (iii) use the finite element method for the space approximation on each truncated domain. The consistency error analysis for the three steps is discussed together with the numerical implementation of the entire algorithm. The results of computations are given illustrating the error behavior in terms of the mesh size of the physical domain, the domain truncation parameter and the quadrature spacing parameter.
Notable schemes for discretizing the fractional Laplacian based on different ideas include work based on the Caffarelli-Silvestre extension @cite_15 @cite_41 @cite_13 , finite-element-based approaches @cite_48 @cite_17 @cite_8 @cite_43 @cite_30 , and work on spectral approaches @cite_19 @cite_11 @cite_14 . General references for fractional Laplacians on bounded domains include, e.g., Ros-Oton @cite_10 , D'Elia and Gunzburger @cite_38 , Felsinger @cite_4 , and @cite_0 .