A seamless, extended DG approach for advection-diffusion problems on unbounded domains

Abstract

We propose and analyze a seamless extended Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretization of hyperbolic-parabolic equations on semiinfinite domains. The semi-infinite half line is split into a finite subdomain where the model uses a standard polynomial basis, and a semi-unbounded subdomain where scaled Laguerre functions are employed as basis and test functions. Numerical fluxes enable the coupling at the interface between the two subdomains in the same way as standard single domain DG interelement fluxes. A novel linear analysis on the extended DG model yields stability constraints on the finite subdomain grid size that get tighter for increasing values of the Péclet number. Errors due to the use of different sets of basis functions on different portions of the domain are negligible, as highlighted in numerical experiments with the linear advectiondiffusion and viscous Burgers' equations. With an added damping term on the semi-infinite subdomain, the extended framework is able to efficiently simulate absorbing boundary conditions without additional conditions at the interface. A few modes in the semi-infinite subdomain are found to suffice to deal with outgoing single wave and wave train signals, thus providing an appealing model for fluid flow simulations in unbounded regions.