Special Session 2: Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations and Applications

Boundary Conditions for Constrained Hyperbolic Systems of Partial Differential Equations

Nicolae Tarfulea
Purdue University Northwest
USA
Co-Author(s):    
Abstract:
Many mathematical models in science and technology are based on first-order symmetric hyperbolic systems of differential equations whose solutions must satisfy certain constraints (e.g., in electromagnetism, magnetohydrodynamics, and general relativity). When the models are restricted to bounded domains, the problem of well-posed constraint-preserving boundary conditions arises naturally. However, for numerical solutions finding such boundary conditions may represent just a step in the right direction. Including the constraints as dynamical variables of a larger, unconstrained system associated to the original one could provide better numerical results, as the constraints are kept under control during evolution. One of the main goals of this talk is to present this idea in the case of constrained first-order symmetric hyperbolic systems of differential equations. As an example of application, a vector-valued wave equation with the constraint that the solution be divergence free is considered. Interestingly enough, on a smooth bounded domain, the set of constraint-preserving boundary conditions for this model problem involves the geometry of the boundary.