Finite Element Complexes with Traces Structures: A unified framework for cohomology and bounded interpolation

Abstract: This paper considers the cohomology and bounded interpolation of nonstandard finite element complexes, e.g. Stokes, Hessian, Elasticity, divdiv. Compared to the standard finite element exterior calculus, the main challenge is the existence of extra smoothness. This paper provides a unified framework for finite element complexes with extra smoothness. The trace structure is introduced to derive the bubble complexes in different dimensions (vertices, edges, faces). It is shown that if the bubble complexes in different dimensions are all exact, then the finite element has the correct cohomology. Moreover, the $L^2$ bounded interpolation can be constructed.