A C0 Interior Penalty Method for the Phase Field Crystal Equation

Abstract: We present a C0 interior penalty finite element method for the sixth-order phase field crystal equation. We demonstrate that the numerical scheme is uniquely solvable, unconditionally energy stable, and convergent. We remark that the novelty of this paper lies in the fact that this is the first C0 interior penalty finite element method developed for the phase field crystal equation. Additionally, the error analysis presented develops a detailed methodology for analyzing time dependent problems utilizing the C0 interior penalty method. We furthermore benchmark our method against numerical experiments previously established in the literature.