Unisolvent and minimal physical degrees of freedom for the second family of polynomial differential forms

Abstract

The principal aim of this work is to provide a family of unisolvent and minimal physical degrees of freedom, called weights, for N\'ed\'elec second family of finite elements. Such elements are thought of as differential forms $ \mathcal{P}_r \Lambda^k (T)$ whose coefficients are polynomials of degree $ r $. We confine ourselves in the two dimensional case $ \mathbb{R}^2 $ since it is easy to visualise and offers a neat and elegant treatment; however, we present techniques that can be extended to $ n > 2 $ with some adjustments of technical details. In particular, we use techniques of homological algebra to obtain degrees of freedom for the whole diagram $$ \mathcal{P}_r \Lambda^0 (T) \rightarrow \mathcal{P}_r \Lambda^1 (T) \rightarrow \mathcal{P}_r \Lambda^2 (T), $$ being $ T $ a $2$-simplex of $ \mathbb{R}^2 $. This work pairs its companions recently appeared for N\'ed\'elec first family of finite elements.