# On arbitrarily regular conforming virtual element methods for elliptic partial differential equations

Code:
92/2021
Title:
On arbitrarily regular conforming virtual element methods for elliptic partial differential equations
Date:
Monday 27th December 2021
Author(s):
Antonietti, P.F.; Manzini, G.; Scacchi, S.; Verani, M.
The Virtual Element Method (VEM) is a very effective framework to design numerical approximations with high global regularity to the solutions of elliptic partial differential equations. In this paper, we review the construction of such approximations for an elliptic problem of order $\p_1$ using conforming, finite dimensional subspaces of $\H^2{\p_2}(\Omega)$, where $\p_1$ and $\p_2$ are two integer numbers such that $\p_2\geq\p_1\geq1$ and $\Omega\in\R^2$ is the computational domain. An abstract convergence result is presented in a suitably defined energy norm. The space formulation and major aspects such as the choice and unisolvence of the degrees of freedom are discussed, also providing specific examples corresponding to various practical cases of high global regularity. Finally, the construction of the enhanced'' formulation of the virtual element spaces is also discussed in details with a proof that the dimension of the regular'' and enhanced'' spaces is the same and that the virtual element functions in both spaces can be described by the same choice of the degrees of freedom.