Galerkin Methods for the Fully Nonlinear Monge-Ampère Equation

This paper develops and analyzes finite element Galerkin and spectral Galerkin methods for approximating viscosity solutions of the fully nonlinear Monge-Amp\`ere equation $\det(D^2u^0)=f$ based on the vanishing moment method which was developed by the authors in \cite{Feng2,Feng1}. In this approach, the Monge-Amp\`ere equation is approximated by the fourth order quasilinear equation $-\epsilon\Delta^2 u^\epsilon + \det{D^2u^\epsilon} =f$ accompanied by appropriate boundary conditions. This new approach allows one to construct convergent Galerkin numerical methods for the fully nonlinear Monge-Amp\`ere equation, a task which has been impracticable before. In this paper, we first develop some finite element and spectral Galerkin methods for approximating the solution $u^\epsilon$ of the regularized fourth order problem. We then derive optimal order error estimates for the proposed numerical methods. In particular, we track explicitly the dependence of the error bounds on the parameter $\vepsi$, for the error $u^\epsilon-u^\epsilon_h$. Finally, using the Aygris finite element method as an example, we present a detailed numerical study of the rates of convergence in terms of powers of $\vepsi$ for the error $u^0-u_h^\vepsi$, and numerically examine what is the "best" mesh size $h$ in relation to $\vepsi$ in order to achieve these rates.