2Non-conforming interface conditions for the second-order wave equation
ghost points (SBP-GP) [5]. SBP finite difference operators are essentially stan-
dard finite difference stencils in the interior with boundary closures carefully
designed to mimic integration by parts in the discrete setting. The SBP differ-
ence operators have an associated discrete inner product such that a discrete
energy equation that is analogous to the continuous equation can be derived.
The boundary conditions should be imposed such that the scheme exhibits no
non-physical energy growth, sometimes referred to as strict stability [6]. The
SAT method achieves this by adding penalty terms that weakly impose the
boundary conditions such that the resulting scheme is stable, see for example
[7]. The SBP-GP method adds ghost points at the boundaries and computes
their values such that the boundary conditions are imposed and the scheme
is stable [8,9]. The projection method derives an orthogonal projection and
rewrites the problem such that it is solved in the subspace of solutions where
the boundary conditions are exactly fulfilled, see [10].
An important aspect of finite difference methods is the ability to split the
computational domain into blocks and couple them across the interfaces. This
is necessary to handle complex geometries, but also to increase the efficiency
of the schemes. For example, in the case of the wave equation, a finer grid
spacing is only needed in regions of the domain where the wave speed is high.
In other regions, a coarser grid may be used. In general, the grid points at each
side of an interface are non-conforming, in which case interpolations are used
to couple the solutions. In the framework of SBP finite differences, it is crucial
that the method of imposing the interpolated interface conditions preserves
the SBP properties of the difference operators.
The construction of interpolation operators along with SATs to obtain sta-
ble schemes with non-conforming interfaces has received significant attention in
the past [11–13]. In [11] so-called SBP-preserving interpolation operators (here
referred to as norm-compatible) were first constructed and used to derive stable
schemes for general hyperbolic and parabolic problems. However, it was noted
in [13,14] that the global convergence rate was decreased by one (compared
to the convergence rate with conforming grids) for problems involving sec-
ond derivatives in space. In [15] this is solved by constructing order-preserving
(OP) interpolation operators along with SATs such that the global convergence
rate is preserved. The new operators come in two norm-compatible pairs (a
pair consists of one restriction operator and one prolongation operator), where
one of the operators in each pair is of one order higher accuracy. Using both
pairs, an SAT is presented in [15] where the first interface condition (continu-
ity of the solution) is imposed using the accurate interpolation and the second
interface condition (continuity of the first derivative) using the less accurate
interpolation.
A major downside of the SBP-SAT discretizations is the necessary decom-
position of the second derivative SBP operator to obtain an energy estimate.
Often referred to as the ”borrowing trick” [16]. This procedure is known to
introduce additional stiffness to the problem, especially for large wave speed
discontinuities. The main contribution of the current work is two new methods