Semi-Lagrangian contouring and elliptic systems
Abstract:
Many moving interface problems evolve complex material interfaces through topological changes, under velocities determined by elliptic systems of partial differential equations. A combination of semi-Lagrangian contouring, fast distance finding and Ewald summation yields robust efficient methods for such problems. High-resolution computations with geometric, Stokes and viscoelastic flows exhibit merging, anisotropy, faceting, curvature, dynamic topology and nonlocal interactions.

The interface motion is converted to a contouring problem with an explicit second-order semi-Lagrangian advection formula. Grid-free adaptive refinement resolves complex interface geometry. A fast new Voronoi-based algorithm computes distances to high-order interface patches. Elliptic systems are solved by a fast new locally-corrected boundary integral formulation derived by Ewald summation and accelerated by new geometric nonequidistant fast Fourier transforms.
Applied Mathematics Seminar