Nonconforming finite element approximations and the analysis of Nitsche's method for a singularly perturbed quad-curl problem in three dimensions

Abstract: We introduce and analyze a robust nonconforming finite element method for a three dimensional singularly perturbed quad-curl model problem. For the solution of the model problem, we derive proper a priori bounds, based on which, we prove that the proposed finite element method is robust with respect to the singular perturbation parameter $\varepsilon$ and the numerical solution is uniformly convergent with order $h^{1/2}$. In addition, we investigate the effect of treating the second boundary condition weakly by Nitsche's method. We show that such a treatment leads to sharper error estimates than imposing the boundary condition strongly when the parameter $\varepsilon< h$. Finally, numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the good performance of the method and confirm our theoretical predictions.