Finite element approximation of the $p(\cdot)$-Laplacian

D. Breit, L. Diening, S. Schwarzacher

Published 2013-11-20, updated 2014-08-12Version 2

We study a~priori estimates for the Dirichlet problem of the $p(\cdot)$-Laplacian, \[-\mathrm{div}(|\nabla v|^{p(\cdot)-2} \nabla v) = f. \] We show that the gradients of the finite element approximation with zero boundary data converges with rate $O(h^\alpha)$ if the exponent $p$ is $\alpha$-H\"{o}lder continuous. The error of the gradients is measured in the so-called quasi-norm, i.e. we measure the $L^2$-error of $|\nabla v|^{\frac{p-2}{2}} \nabla v$.