Plain convergence of goal-oriented adaptive FEM

Abstract: We discuss goal-oriented adaptivity in the frame of conforming finite element methods and plain convergence of the related a posteriori error estimator for different general marking strategies. We present an abstract analysis for two different settings. First, we consider problems where a local discrete efficiency estimate holds. Second, we show plain convergence in a setting that relies only on structural properties of the error estimators, namely stability on non-refined elements as well as reduction on refined elements. In particular, the second setting does not require reliability and efficiency estimates. Numerical experiments underline our theoretical findings.