Low-Variance Randomised Numerical Linear Algebra for Finite Element Simulation

Abstract

We present a low-variance randomised numerical linear algebra approach for multi-query finite element systems arising from parametric elliptic partial differential equations with applications to digital twins and online model calibration. The method relies on Galerkin subspace projection for reducing the dimensionality, and then combines parameter-oblivious leverage-score Bernoulli sampling with a control variates scheme to yield a reduced-variance `forward' sketch and an invertible `inverse' sketch that are then fused to a single efficient regularised estimator. Effectively, this reduces the computational cost in computing the projected system of equations while preserving the structure, stability, and accuracy of the underlying FEM formulation. We derive probabilistic bounds for the sketching error, invertibility, and estimator variance, and then validate the method on large-scale example problems. The results show that when the parameter fields do not vary too sharply, the synergy of control variates together with the sketch fusion can largely offset the loss incurred by the sub-optimal parameter-oblivious sampling. In this regime, our method achieves substantial savings in time, memory, and communication while maintaining accuracy levels that are acceptable for scientific simulation.