Analysis of the Crouzeix-Raviart Surface Finite Element Method for vector-valued Laplacians

Abstract: Recently a nonconforming surface finite element was developed to discretize 2D vector-valued compressible flow problems in a 3D domain. In this contribution we derive an error analysis for this approach on a vector-valued Laplace problem, which is an important operator for fluid-equations on the surface. In our setup, the problem is approximated via edge-integration on local flat triangles using the nonconforming linear Crouzeix-Raviart element. The flat planes coincide with the surface at the edge midpoints. This is also the place, where the Crouzeix-Raviart element requires continuity between two neighbouring elements. The developed Crouzeix-Raviart approximation is a non-parametric approach that works on local coordinate systems, established in each triangle. This setup is numerically efficient and straightforward to implement. For this Crouzeix-Raviart discretization we derive optimal error bounds in the $H^1$-norm and $L^2$-norm and present an estimate for the geometric error. Numerical experiments validate the theoretical results.