A Hellan-Herrmann-Johnson-like method for the stream function formulation of the Stokes equations in two and three space dimensions

Abstract: We introduce a new discretization for the stream function formulation of the incompressible Stokes equations in two and three space dimensions. The method is strongly related to the Hellan-Herrmann-Johnson method and is based on the recently discovered mass conserving mixed stress formulation [J. Gopalakrishnan, P.L. Lederer, J. Sch\"oberl, IMA Journal of numerical Analysis, 2019] that approximates the velocity in an $H(\operatorname{div})$-conforming space and introduces a new stress-like variable for the approximation of the gradient of the velocity within the function space $H(\operatorname{curl}\operatorname{div})$. The properties of the (discrete) de Rham complex allows to extend this method to a stream function formulation in two and three space dimensions. We present a detailed stability analysis in the continuous and the discrete setting where the stream function $\psi$ and its approximation $\psi_h$ are elements of $H(\operatorname{curl})$ and the $H(\operatorname{curl})$-conforming N\'ed\'elec finite element space, respectively. We conclude with an error analysis revealing optimal convergence rates for the error of the discrete velocity $u_h = \operatorname{curl}(\psi_h)$ measured in a discrete $H^1$-norm. We present numerical examples to validate our findings and discuss structure-preserving properties such as pressure-robustness.