<i>
  This program was contributed by Matthias Maier (Texas A&M University),
  and Ignacio Tomas (Sandia National Laboratories$^{\!\dagger}$).
</i>

$^\dagger$<em>Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory
managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia,
LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S.
Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract
DE-NA0003525. This document describes objective technical results and analysis.
Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not
necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United
States Government.</em>

@note This tutorial step implements a first-order accurate <i>guaranteed
maximum wavespeed method</i> based on a first-order <i>graph viscosity</i>
for solving Euler's equations of gas dynamics @cite GuermondPopov2016. As
such it is presented primarily for educational purposes. For actual
research computations you might want to consider exploring a corresponding
<a href="https://github.com/conservation-laws/ryujin">high-performance
implementation of a second-order accurate scheme</a> that uses <i>convex
limiting</i> techniques, and strong stability-preserving (SSP) time
integration, see @cite GuermondEtAl2018
(<a href="https://conservation-laws.org/">website</a>).

@dealiiTutorialDOI{10.5281/zenodo.3698223,https://zenodo.org/badge/DOI/10.5281/zenodo.3698223.svg}

<a name="Intro"></a>
<h1>Introduction</h1>

This tutorial presents a first-order scheme for solving compressible
Euler's equations that is based on three ingredients: a
<i>collocation</i>-type discretization of Euler's equations in the context
of finite elements; a graph-viscosity stabilization based on a
<i>guaranteed</i> upper bound of the local wave speed; and explicit
time-stepping. As such, the ideas and techniques presented in this tutorial
step are drastically different from those used in step-33, which focuses on
the use of automatic differentiation. From a programming perspective this
tutorial will focus on a number of techniques found in large-scale
computations: hybrid thread-MPI parallelization; efficient local numbering
of degrees of freedom; concurrent post-processing and write-out of results
using worker threads; as well as checkpointing and restart.

It should be noted that first-order schemes in the context of hyperbolic
conservation laws require prohibitively many degrees of freedom to resolve
certain key features of the simulated fluid, and thus, typically only serve
as elementary building blocks in higher-order schemes
@cite GuermondEtAl2018. However, we hope that the reader still finds the
tutorial step to be a good starting point (in particular with respect to
the programming techniques) before jumping into full research codes such as
the second-order scheme discussed in @cite GuermondEtAl2018.


<a name="eulerequations"></a>
<h3>Euler's equations of gas dynamics</h3>

The compressible Euler's equations of gas dynamics are written in
conservative form as follows:
@f{align}
\mathbf{u}_t + \text{div} \, \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}) = \boldsymbol{0} ,
@f}
where $\mathbf{u}(\textbf{x},t):\mathbb{R}^{d} \times \mathbb{R}
\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{d+2}$, and $\mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}):\mathbb{R}^{d+2}
\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{(d+2) \times d}$, and $d \geq 1$ is the space
dimension. We say that $\mathbf{u} \in \mathbb{R}^{d+2}$ is the state and
$\mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}) \in  \mathbb{R}^{(d+2) \times d}$ is the flux of
the system. In the case of Euler's equations the state is given by
$\textbf{u} = [\rho, \textbf{m},E]^{\top}$: where $\rho \in \mathbb{R}^+$
denotes the density, $\textbf{m} \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is the momentum, and $E
\in \mathbb{R}^+$ is the total energy of the system. The flux of the system
$\mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u})$ is defined as
@f{align*}
\mathbb{f}(\textbf{u})
=
\begin{bmatrix}
  \textbf{m}^\top \\
  \rho^{-1} \textbf{m} \otimes \textbf{m} + \mathbb{I} p\\
  \tfrac{\textbf{m}^\top}{\rho} (E + p)
\end{bmatrix},
@f}
where $\mathbb{I} \in \mathbb{R}^{d \times d}$ is the identity matrix and
$\otimes$ denotes the tensor product. Here, we have introduced the pressure
$p$ that, in general, is defined by a closed-form equation of state.
In this tutorial we limit the discussion to the class of polytropic
ideal gases for which the pressure is given by
@f{align*}
p = p(\textbf{u}) := (\gamma -1) \Big(E -
\tfrac{|\textbf{m}|^2}{2\,\rho}
\Big),
@f}
where the factor $\gamma \in (1,5/3]$ denotes the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity_ratio">ratio of specific
heats</a>.


<h4>Solution theory</h4>

Hyperbolic conservation laws, such as
@f{align*}
\mathbf{u}_t + \text{div} \, \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}) = \boldsymbol{0},
@f}
pose a significant challenge with respect to solution theory. An evident
observation is that rewriting the equation in variational form and testing with
the solution itself does not lead to an energy estimate because the pairing
$\langle \text{div} \, \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}), \mathbf{u}\rangle$ (understood as
the $L^2(\Omega)$ inner product or duality pairing) is not guaranteed to be
non-negative. Notions such as energy-stability or $L^2(\Omega)$-stability are
(in general) meaningless in this context.

Historically, the most fruitful step taken in order to deepen the
understanding of hyperbolic conservation laws was to assume that the
solution is formally defined as $\mathbf{u} := \lim_{\epsilon \rightarrow
0^+} \mathbf{u}^{\epsilon}$ where $\mathbf{u}^{\epsilon}$ is the solution
of the parabolic regularization
@f{align}
\mathbf{u}_t^{\epsilon} + \text{div} \, \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}^{\epsilon})
- {\epsilon} \Delta \mathbf{u}^{\epsilon} = 0.
@f}
Such solutions, which are understood as the solution recovered in the
zero-viscosity limit, are often referred to as <i>viscosity solutions</i>.
(This is, because physically $\epsilon$ can be understood as related to the viscosity of the
fluid, i.e., a quantity that indicates the amount of friction neighboring gas particles moving at
different speeds exert on each other. The Euler equations themselves are derived under
the assumption of no friction, but can physically be expected to describe the limiting
case of vanishing friction or viscosity.)
Global existence and uniqueness of such solutions is an open issue.
However, we know at least that if such viscosity solutions exists they have
to satisfy the constraint $\textbf{u}(\mathbf{x},t) \in \mathcal{B}$ for
all $\mathbf{x} \in \Omega$ and $t \geq 0$ where
@f{align}
  \mathcal{B} = \big\{ \textbf{u} =
  [\rho, \textbf{m},E]^{\top} \in \mathbb{R}^{d+2} \, \big |
  \
  \rho > 0 \, ,
  \
  \ E - \tfrac{|\textbf{m}|^2}{2 \rho} > 0 \, ,
  \
  s(\mathbf{u}) \geq \min_{x \in \Omega} s(\mathbf{u}_0(\mathbf{x}))
  \big\}.
@f}
Here, $s(\mathbf{u})$ denotes the specific entropy
@f{align}
  s(\mathbf{u}) = \ln \Big(\frac{p(\mathbf{u})}{\rho^{\gamma}}\Big).
@f}
We will refer to $\mathcal{B}$ as the invariant set of Euler's equations.
In other words, a state $\mathbf{u}(\mathbf{x},t)\in\mathcal{B}$ obeys
positivity of the density, positivity of the internal energy, and a local
minimum principle on the specific entropy. This condition is a simplified
version of a class of pointwise stability constraints satisfied by the
exact (viscosity) solution. By pointwise we mean that the constraint has to
be satisfied at every point of the domain, not just in an averaged
(integral, or high order moments) sense.

In context of a numerical approximation, a violation of such a constraint
has dire consequences: it almost surely leads to catastrophic failure of
the numerical scheme, loss of hyperbolicity, and overall, loss of
well-posedness of the (discrete) problem. It would also mean that we have computed
something that can not be interpreted physically. (For example, what are we to make
of a computed solution with a negative density?) In the following we will
formulate a scheme that ensures that the discrete approximation of
$\mathbf{u}(\mathbf{x},t)$ remains in $\mathcal{B}$.


<h4>Variational versus collocation-type discretizations</h4>

Following Step-9, Step-12, Step-33, and Step-67, at this point it might look
tempting to base a discretization of Euler's equations on a (semi-discrete)
variational formulation:
@f{align*}
  (\partial_t\mathbf{u}_{h},\textbf{v}_h)_{L^2(\Omega)}
  - ( \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}_{h}) ,\text{grad} \, \textbf{v}_{h})_{L^2(\Omega)}
  + s_h(\mathbf{u}_{h},\textbf{v}_h)_{L^2(\Omega)} = \boldsymbol{0}
  \quad\forall \textbf{v}_h \in \mathbb{V}_h.
@f}
Here, $\mathbb{V}_h$ is an appropriate finite element space, and
$s_h(\cdot,\cdot)_{L^2(\Omega)}$ is some linear stabilization method
(possibly complemented with some ad-hoc shock-capturing technique, see for
instance Chapter 5 of @cite GuermondErn2004 and references therein). Most
time-dependent discretization approaches described in the deal.II tutorials
are based on such a (semi-discrete) variational approach. Fundamentally,
from an analysis perspective, variational discretizations are conceived
to provide some notion of global (integral) stability, meaning an
estimate of the form
@f{align*}
  |\!|\!| \mathbf{u}_{h}(t) |\!|\!| \leq |\!|\!| \mathbf{u}_{h}(0) |\!|\!|
@f}
holds true, where $|\!|\!| \cdot |\!|\!| $ could represent the
$L^2(\Omega)$-norm or, more generally, some discrete (possibly mesh
dependent) energy-norm. Variational discretizations of hyperbolic
conservation laws have been very popular since the mid eighties, in
particular combined with SUPG-type stabilization and/or upwinding
techniques (see the early work of @cite Brooks1982 and @cite Johnson1986). They
have proven to be some of the best approaches for simulations in the subsonic
shockless regime and similarly benign situations.

<!-- In particular, tutorial Step-67 focuses on Euler's equation of gas
dynamics in the subsonic regime using dG techniques. -->

However, in the transonic and supersonic regimes, and shock-hydrodynamics
applications the use of variational schemes might be questionable. In fact,
at the time of this writing, most shock-hydrodynamics codes are still
firmly grounded on finite volume methods. The main reason for failure of
variational schemes in such extreme regimes is the lack of pointwise
stability. This stems from the fact that <i>a priori</i> bounds on
integrated quantities (e.g. integrals of moments) have in general no
implications on pointwise properties of the solution. While some of these
problems might be alleviated by the (perpetual) chase of the right shock
capturing scheme, finite difference-like and finite volume schemes still
have an edge in many regards.

In this tutorial step we therefore depart from variational schemes. We will
present a completely algebraic formulation (with the flavor of a
collocation-type scheme) that preserves constraints pointwise, i.e.,
@f{align*}
  \textbf{u}_h(\mathbf{x}_i,t) \in \mathcal{B}
  \;\text{at every node}\;\mathbf{x}_i\;\text{of the mesh}.
@f}
Contrary to finite difference/volume schemes, the scheme implemented in
this step maximizes the use of finite element software infrastructure,
works on any mesh, in any space dimension, and is theoretically guaranteed
to always work, all the time, no exception. This illustrates that deal.II
can be used far beyond the context of variational schemes in Hilbert spaces
and that a large number of classes, modules and namespaces from deal.II can
be adapted for such a purpose.


<h3>Description of the scheme </h3>

Let $\mathbb{V}_h$ be scalar-valued finite dimensional space spanned by a
basis $\{\phi_i\}_{i \in \mathcal{V}}$ where: $\phi_i:\Omega \rightarrow
\mathbb{R}$ and $\mathcal{V}$ is the set of all indices (nonnegative
integers) identifying each scalar Degree of Freedom (DOF) in the mesh.
Therefore a scalar finite element functional $u_h \in \mathbb{V}_h$ can
be written as $u_h = \sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} U_i \phi_i$ with $U_i \in
\mathbb{R}$. We introduce the notation for vector-valued approximation
spaces $\pmb{\mathbb{V}}_h := \{\mathbb{V}_h\}^{d+2}$. Let $\mathbf{u}_h
\in \pmb{\mathbb{V}}_h$, then it can be written as $\mathbf{u}_h = \sum_{i
\in \mathcal{V}} \mathbf{U}_i \phi_i$ where $\mathbf{U}_i \in
\mathbb{R}^{d+2}$ and $\phi_i$ is a scalar-valued shape function.

@note We purposely refrain from using vector-valued finite element
spaces in our notation. Vector-valued finite element spaces
are natural for variational formulations of PDE systems (e.g. Navier-Stokes).
In such context, the interactions that have to be computed describe
<i>interactions between DOFs</i>: with proper renumbering of the
vector-valued DoFHandler (i.e. initialized with an FESystem) it is possible
to compute the block-matrices (required in order to advance the solution)
with relative ease. However, the interactions that have to be computed in
the context of time-explicit collocation-type schemes (such as finite
differences and/or the scheme presented in this tutorial) can be
better described as <i>interactions between nodes</i> (not between DOFs).
In addition, in our case we do not solve a linear equation in order to
advance the solution. This leaves very little reason to use vector-valued
finite element spaces both in theory and/or practice.

We will use the usual Lagrange finite elements: let $\{\mathbf{x}_i\}_{i \in
\mathcal{V}}$ denote the set of all support points (see @ref GlossSupport "this glossary entry"),
where $\mathbf{x}_i \in \mathbb{R}^d$. Then each index $i \in
\mathcal{V}$ uniquely identifies a support point $\mathbf{x}_i$, as well as a
scalar-valued shape function $\phi_i$. With this notation at hand we can define
the (explicit time stepping) scheme as:
@f{align*}{
  m_i \frac{\mathbf{U}_i^{n+1} - \mathbf{U}_i^{n}}{\tau}
  + \sum_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)} \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{U}_j^{n})\cdot
  \mathbf{c}_{ij} - \sum_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)}
  d_{ij} \mathbf{U}_j^{n} = \boldsymbol{0} \, ,
@f}
where
  - $m_i \dealcoloneq \int_{\Omega} \phi_i \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x}$
    is the lumped mass matrix
  - $\tau$ is the time step size
  - $\mathbf{c}_{ij} \dealcoloneq \int_{\Omega} \nabla\phi_j\phi_i \,
    \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x}$ (note that $\mathbf{c}_{ij}\in \mathbb{R}^d$)
    is a vector-valued matrix that was used to approximate the divergence
    of the flux in a weak sense.
  - $\mathcal{I}(i) \dealcoloneq \{j \in \mathcal{V} \ | \ \mathbf{c}_{ij}
    \not \equiv \boldsymbol{0}\} \cup \{i\}$ is the adjacency list
    containing all degrees of freedom coupling to the index $i$. In other
    words $\mathcal{I}(i)$ contains all nonzero column indices for row
    index i. $\mathcal{I}(i)$ will also be called a "stencil".
  - $\mathbb{f}(\mathbf{U}_j^{n})$ is the flux $\mathbb{f}$ of the
    hyperbolic system evaluated for the state $\mathbf{U}_j^{n}$ associated
    with support point $\mathbf{x}_j$.
  - $d_{ij} \dealcoloneq \max \{ \lambda_{\text{max}}
    (\mathbf{U}_i^{n},\mathbf{U}_j^{n}, \textbf{n}_{ij}),
    \lambda_{\text{max}} (\mathbf{U}_j^{n}, \mathbf{U}_i^{n},
    \textbf{n}_{ji}) \} \|\mathbf{c}_{ij}\|$ if $i \not = j$ is the so
    called <i>graph viscosity</i>. The graph viscosity serves as a
    stabilization term, it is somewhat the discrete counterpart of
    $\epsilon \Delta \mathbf{u}$ that appears in the notion of viscosity
    solution described above. We will base our construction of $d_{ij}$ on
    an estimate of the maximal local wavespeed $\lambda_{\text{max}}$ that
    will be explained in detail in a moment.
  - the diagonal entries of the viscosity matrix are defined as
    $d_{ii} = - \sum_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)\backslash \{i\}} d_{ij}$.
  - $\textbf{n}_{ij} = \frac{\mathbf{c}_{ij}}{ \|\mathbf{c}_{ij}\| }$ is a
    normalization of the $\textbf{c}_{ij}$ matrix that enters the
    approximate Riemann solver with which we compute an the approximations
    $\lambda_{\text{max}}$ on the local wavespeed. (This will be explained
    further down below).

The definition of $\lambda_{\text{max}} (\mathbf{U},\mathbf{V},
\textbf{n})$ is far from trivial and we will postpone the precise
definition in order to focus first on some algorithmic and implementation
questions. We note that
  - $m_i$ and $\mathbf{c}_{ij}$ do not evolve in time (provided we keep the
    discretization fixed). It thus makes sense to assemble these
    matrices/vectors once in a so called <i>offline computation</i> and reuse
    them in every time step. They are part of what we are going to call
    off-line data.
  - At every time step we have to evaluate $\mathbb{f}(\mathbf{U}_j^{n})$ and
    $d_{ij} \dealcoloneq \max \{ \lambda_{\text{max}}
    (\mathbf{U}_i^{n},\mathbf{U}_j^{n}, \textbf{n}_{ij}),
    \lambda_{\text{max}} (\mathbf{U}_j^{n}, \mathbf{U}_i^{n},
    \textbf{n}_{ji}) \} \|\mathbf{c}_{ij}\| $, which will
    constitute the bulk of the computational cost.

Consider the following pseudo-code, illustrating a possible straight
forward strategy for computing the solution $\textbf{U}^{n+1}$ at a new
time $t_{n+1} = t_n + \tau_n$ given a known state $\textbf{U}^{n}$ at time
$t_n$:
@f{align*}
&\textbf{for } i \in \mathcal{V} \\
&\ \ \ \  \{\mathbf{c}_{ij}\}_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)} \leftarrow
\mathtt{gather\_cij\_vectors} (\textbf{c}, \mathcal{I}(i)) \\
&\ \ \ \ \{\textbf{U}_j^n\}_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)} \leftarrow
\mathtt{gather\_state\_vectors} (\textbf{U}^n, \mathcal{I}(i)) \\
&\ \ \ \ \ \textbf{U}_i^{n+1} \leftarrow \mathbf{U}_i^{n} \\
&\ \ \ \ \textbf{for } j \in \mathcal{I}(i)\backslash\{i\} \\
&\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  \texttt{compute } d_{ij} \\
&\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  \texttt{compute } \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{U}_j^{n}) \\
&\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \  \textbf{U}_i^{n+1} \leftarrow \textbf{U}_i^{n+1} - \frac{\tau_n}{m_i}
 \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{U}_j^{n})\cdot \mathbf{c}_{ij} + d_{ij} \mathbf{U}_j^{n} \\
&\ \ \ \ \textbf{end} \\
&\ \ \ \ \mathtt{scatter\_updated\_state} (\textbf{U}_i^{n+1}) \\
&\textbf{end}
@f}

We note here that:
- This "assembly" does not require any form of quadrature or cell-loops.
- Here $\textbf{c}$ and $\textbf{U}^n$ are a global matrix and a global vector
containing all the vectors $\mathbf{c}_{ij}$ and all the states
$\mathbf{U}_j^n$ respectively.
- $\mathtt{gather\_cij\_vectors}$, $\mathtt{gather\_state\_vectors}$, and
$\mathtt{scatter\_updated\_state}$ are hypothetical implementations that
either collect (from) or write (into) global matrices and vectors.
- If we assume a Cartesian mesh in two space
dimensions, first-order polynomial space $\mathbb{Q}^1$, and that
$\mathbf{x}_i$ is an interior node (i.e. $\mathbf{x}_i$ is not on the boundary
of the domain) then: $\{\textbf{U}_j^n\}_{j \in \mathcal{I}(i)}$ should contain
nine state vector elements (i.e. all the states in the patch/macro element
associated to the shape function $\phi_i$). This is one of the major
differences with the usual cell-based loop where the gather functionality
(encoded in FEValuesBase<dim, spacedim>.get_function_values() in the case
of deal.II) only collects values for the local cell (just a subset of the
patch).

The actual implementation will deviate from above code in one key aspect:
the time-step size $\tau$ has to be chosen subject to a CFL condition
@f{align*}
  \tau_n = c_{\text{cfl}}\,\min_{
  i\in\mathcal{V}}\left(\frac{m_i}{-2\,d_{ii}^{n}}\right),
@f}
where $0<c_{\text{cfl}}\le1$ is a chosen constant. This will require to
compute all $d_{ij}$ in a separate step prior to actually performing above
update. The core principle remains unchanged, though: we do not loop over
cells but rather over all edges of the sparsity graph.

@note It is not uncommon to encounter such fully-algebraic schemes (i.e.
no bilinear forms, no cell loops, and no quadrature) outside of the finite
element community in the wider CFD community. There is a rich history of
application of this kind of schemes, also called <i>edge-based</i> or
<i>graph-based</i> finite element schemes (see for instance
@cite Rainald2008 for a historical overview). However, it is important to
highlight that the algebraic structure of the scheme (presented in this
tutorial) and the node-loops are not just a performance gimmick. Actually, the
structure of this scheme was born out of theoretical necessity: the proof of
pointwise stability of the scheme hinges on the specific algebraic structure of
the scheme. In addition, it is not possible to compute the algebraic
viscosities $d_{ij}$ using cell-loops since they depend nonlinearly on
information that spans more than one cell (superposition does not hold: adding
contributions from separate cells does not lead to the right result).

<h3>Stable boundary conditions and conservation properties.</h3>

In the example considered in this tutorial step we use three different types of
boundary conditions: essential-like boundary conditions (we prescribe a
state at the left boundary of our domain), outflow boundary conditions
(also called "do-nothing" boundary conditions) at the right boundary of the
domain, and "reflecting" boundary conditions $\mathbf{m} \cdot
\boldsymbol{\nu} = 0$ (also called "slip" boundary conditions) at the top,
bottom, and surface of the obstacle. We will not discuss much about
essential and "do-nothing" boundary conditions since their implementation
is relatively easy and the reader will be able to pick-up the
implementation directly from the (documented) source code. In this portion
of the introduction we will focus only on the "reflecting" boundary
conditions which are somewhat more tricky.

@note At the time of this writing (early 2020) it is not unreasonable to say
that both analysis and implementation of stable boundary conditions for
hyperbolic systems of conservation laws is an open issue. For the case of
variational formulations, stable boundary conditions are those leading to a
well-posed (coercive) bilinear form. But for general hyperbolic
systems of conservation laws (and for the algebraic formulation used in this
tutorial) coercivity has no applicability and/or meaning as a notion of
stability. In this tutorial step we will use preservation of the invariant set
as our main notion of stability which (at the very least) guarantees
well-posedness of the discrete problem.

For the case of the reflecting boundary conditions we will proceed as follows:
- For every time step advance in time satisfying no boundary condition at all.
- Let $\partial\Omega^r$ be the portion of the boundary where we want to
  enforce reflecting boundary conditions. At the end of the time step we enforce
  reflecting boundary conditions strongly in a post-processing step where we
  execute the projection
    @f{align*}
    \mathbf{m}_i \dealcoloneq \mathbf{m}_i - (\widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}}_i
    \cdot \mathbf{m}_i)  \widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}}_i \ \
    \text{where} \ \
    \widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}}_i \dealcoloneq
    \frac{\int_{\partial\Omega} \phi_i \widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}} \,
    \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{s}}{\big|\int_{\partial\Omega} \phi_i
    \widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}} \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{s}\big|}
    \ \ \text{for all }\mathbf{x}_i \in \partial\Omega^r
    \ \ \ \ \boldsymbol{(1)}
    @f}
  that removes the normal component of $\mathbf{m}$. This is a somewhat
  naive idea that preserves a few fundamental properties of the PDE as we
  explain below.

This is approach is usually called "explicit treatment of boundary conditions".
The well seasoned finite element person might find this approach questionable.
No doubt, when solving parabolic, or elliptic equations, we typically enforce
essential (Dirichlet-like) boundary conditions by making them part of the
approximation space $\mathbb{V}$, and treat natural (e.g. Neumann) boundary
conditions as part of the variational formulation. We also know that explicit
treatment of boundary conditions (in the context of parabolic PDEs) almost
surely leads to catastrophic consequences. However, in the context of nonlinear
hyperbolic equations we have that:
- It is relatively easy to prove that (for the case of reflecting boundary
conditions) explicit treatment of boundary conditions is not only conservative
but also guarantees preservation of the property $\mathbf{U}_i \in \mathcal{B}$
for all $i \in \mathcal{V}$ (well-posedness). This is perhaps the most
important reason to use explicit enforcement of boundary conditions.
- To the best of our knowledge: we are not aware of any mathematical result
proving that it is possible to guarantee the property $\mathbf{U}_i \in
\mathcal{B}$ for all $i \in \mathcal{V}$ when using either direct enforcement of
boundary conditions into the approximation space, or weak enforcement using the
Nitsche penalty method (which is for example widely used in discontinuous
Galerkin schemes). In addition, some of these traditional ideas lead to quite
restrictive time step constraints.
- There is enough numerical evidence suggesting that explicit treatment of
Dirichlet-like boundary conditions is stable under CFL conditions and does not
introduce any loss in accuracy.

If $\mathbf{u}_t + \text{div} \, \mathbb{f}(\mathbf{u}) = \boldsymbol{0}$
represents Euler's equation with reflecting boundary conditions on the entirety
of the boundary (i.e. $\partial\Omega^r \equiv \partial\Omega$) and we
integrate in space and time $\int_{\Omega}\int_{t_1}^{t_2}$ we would obtain
@f{align*}
\int_{\Omega} \rho(\mathbf{x},t_2) \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x} =
\int_{\Omega} \rho(\mathbf{x},t_1) \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x} \ , \ \
\int_{\Omega} \mathbf{m}(\mathbf{x},t_2) \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x}
+ \int_{t_1}^{t_2} \! \int_{\partial\Omega} p \boldsymbol{\nu} \,
\mathrm{d}\mathbf{s} \mathrm{d}t =
\int_{\Omega} \mathbf{m}(\mathbf{x},t_1) \,
\mathrm{d}\mathbf{x} \ , \ \
\int_{\Omega} E(\mathbf{x},t_2) \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x} =
\int_{\Omega} E(\mathbf{x},t_1) \, \mathrm{d}\mathbf{x} \ \ \ \
\boldsymbol{(2)}
@f}
Note that momentum is NOT a conserved quantity (interaction with walls leads to
momentum gain/loss): however $\mathbf{m}$ has to satisfy a momentum balance.
Even though we will not use reflecting boundary conditions in the entirety of
the domain, we would like to know that our implementation of reflecting
boundary conditions is consistent with the conservation properties mentioned
above. In particular, if we use the projection $\boldsymbol{(1)}$ in the
entirety of the domain the following discrete mass-balance can be guaranteed:
@f{align*}
\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i \rho_i^{n+1} =
\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i \rho_i^{n} \ , \ \
\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i \mathbf{m}_i^{n+1}
+ \tau_n \int_{\partial\Omega} \Big(\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} p_i^{n} \phi_i\Big)
\widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}} \mathrm{d}\mathbf{s} =
\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i \mathbf{m}_i^{n} \ , \ \
\sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i E_i^{n+1} = \sum_{i \in \mathcal{V}} m_i
E_i^{n} \ \ \ \
\boldsymbol{(3)}
@f}
where $p_i$ is the pressure at the nodes that lie at the boundary. Clearly
$\boldsymbol{(3)}$ is the discrete counterpart of $\boldsymbol{(2)}$. The
proof of identity $\boldsymbol{(3)}$ is omitted, but we briefly mention that
it hinges on the definition of the <i>nodal normal</i>
$\widehat{\boldsymbol{\nu}}_i$ provided in $\boldsymbol{(1)}$. We also note that
this enforcement of reflecting boundary conditions is different from the one
originally advanced in @cite GuermondEtAl2018.
