Domain Decomposition with local impedance conditions for the Helmholtz equation with absorption

Abstract: We consider one-level additive Schwarz preconditioners for a family of Helmholtz problems with absorption and increasing wavenumber $k$. These problems are discretized using the Galerkin method with nodal conforming finite elements of any (fixed) order on meshes with diameter $h = h(k)$, chosen to maintain accuracy as $k$ increases. The action of the preconditioner requires solution of independent (parallel) subproblems (with impedance boundary conditions) on overlapping subdomains of diameter $H$ and overlap $\delta\leq H$. The solutions of these subproblems are linked together using prolongation/restriction operators defined using a partition of unity. In numerical experiments (with $\delta \sim H$) for a model interior impedance problem, we observe robust (i.e. $k-$independent) GMRES convergence as $k$ increases. This provides a highly-parallel, $k-$robust one-level domain decomposition method. We provide supporting theory by studying the preconditioner applied to a range of absorptive problems, $k^2\mapsto k^2+ \mathrm{i} \varepsilon$, with absorption parameter $\varepsilon$. Working in the Helmholtz ``energy'' inner product, and using the underlying theory of Helmholtz boundary-value problems, we prove a $k-$independent upper bound on the norm of the preconditioned matrix, valid for all $\vert \varepsilon\vert \lesssim k^2$. We also prove a strictly-positive lower bound on the distance of the field of values of the preconditioned matrix from the origin which holds when $\varepsilon/k$ is constant or growing arbitrarily slowly with $k$. These results imply robustness of the preconditioner for the corresponding absorptive problem as k increases and give theoretical support for the observed robustness of the preconditioner for the pure Helmholtz problem.