Towards higher order immersed finite elements for the wave equation

We consider solving the scalar wave equation using immersed finite elements. Such a method might be useful, for instance, in scattering problems when the geometry of the domain is not known a priori. For hyperbolic problems, the amount of computational work per dispersion error is generally lower when using higher order methods. This serves as motivation for considering a higher order immersed method. One problem in immersed methods is how to enforce boundary conditions. In the present work, boundary conditions are enforced weakly using Nitsche's method. This leads to a symmetric weak formulation, which is essential when solving the wave equation. Since the discrete system consists of symmetric matrices, having real eigenvalues, this ensures stability of the semi-discrete problem. In immersed methods, small intersections between the immersed domain and the elements of the background mesh make the system ill-conditioned. This ill-conditioning becomes increasingly worse when using higher order elements. Here, we consider resolving this issue using additional stabilization terms. These terms consist of jumps in higher order derivatives acting on the internal faces of the elements intersected by the boundary.eSSENC