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Inf-sup condition for Stokes with outflow condition

Analysis of PDEs 2025-02-05 v1 Numerical Analysis Numerical Analysis

Abstract

The inf-sup condition is one of the essential tools in the analysis of the Stokes equations and especially in numerical analysis. In its usual form, the condition states that for every pressure pL2(Ω)Rp\in L^2(\Omega)\setminus \mathbb{R}, (i.e. with mean value zero) a velocity uH01(Ω)du\in H^1_0(\Omega)^d can be found, so that (divu,p)=p2(div\,u,p)=\|p\|^2 and ucp\|\nabla u\|\le c \|p\| applies, where c>0c>0 does not depend on uu and pp. However, if we consider domains that have a Neumann-type outflow condition on part of the boundary ΓNΩ\Gamma_N\subset\partial\Omega, the inf-sup condition cannot be used in this form, since the pressure here comes from L2(Ω)L^2(\Omega) and does not necessarily have zero mean value. In this note, we derive the inf-sup condition for the case of outflow boundaries.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.02146,
  title  = {Inf-sup condition for Stokes with outflow condition},
  author = {Malte Braack and Thomas Richter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.02146},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:31:51.160Z