English

A preconditioner for the Ohta--Kawasaki equation

Numerical Analysis 2016-03-16 v1

Abstract

We propose a new preconditioner for the Ohta--Kawasaki equation, a nonlocal Cahn--Hilliard equation that describes the evolution of diblock copolymer melts. We devise a computable approximation to the inverse of the Schur complement of the coupled second-order formulation via a matching strategy. The preconditioner achieves mesh independence: as the mesh is refined, the number of Krylov iterations required for its solution remains approximately constant. In addition, the preconditioner is robust with respect to the interfacial thickness parameter if a timestep criterion is satisfied. This enables the highly resolved finite element simulation of three-dimensional diblock copolymer melts with over one billion degrees of freedom.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.04570,
  title  = {A preconditioner for the Ohta--Kawasaki equation},
  author = {Patrick E. Farrell and John W. Pearson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.04570},
  year   = {2016}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:10:59.832Z