Discrete Compactness for p-Version of Tetrahedral Edge Elements

We consider the first family of $\Hcurl$-conforming Ned\'el\'ec finite elements on tetrahedral meshes. Spectral approximation ($p$-version) is achieved by keeping the mesh fixed and raising the polynomial degree $p$ uniformly in all mesh cells. We prove that the associated subspaces of discretely weakly divergence free piecewise polynomial vector fields enjoy a long conjectured discrete compactness property as $p\to\infty$. This permits us to conclude asymptotic spectral correctness of spectral Galerkin finite element approximations of Maxwell eigenvalue problems.