Uniform stability for a spatially-discrete, subdiffusive Fokker-Planck equation

Abstract: We prove stability estimates for the spatially discrete, Galerkin solution of a fractional Fokker-Planck equation, improving on previous results in several respects. Our main goal is to establish that the stability constants are bounded uniformly in the fractional diffusion exponent $\alpha\in(0,1]$. In addition, we account for the presence of an inhomogeneous term and show a stability estimate for the gradient of the Galerkin solution. As a by-product, the proofs of error bounds for a standard finite element approximation are simplified.