Adaptive finite element methods (FEM) have been widely used in applications for over 20 years now. In practice, they converge starting from coarse grids, although no mathematical theory has been able to prove this assertion. Ensuring an error reduction rate…

A new computable a posteriori error estimator is introduced, which relies on the solution of small discrete problems on stars. It exhibits built-in flux equilibration and is equivalent to the energy error up to data oscillation without any saturation assumption.…

Data oscillation is intrinsic information missed by the averaging process associated with finite element methods (FEM) regardless of quadrature. Ensuring a reduction rate of data oscillation, together with an error reduction based on a posteriori error estimators, we construct a…