NONCONFORMING VIRTUAL ELEMENTS FOR THE BIHARMONIC EQUATION WITH MORLEY DEGREES OF FREEDOM ON POLYGONAL MESHES.

The lowest-order nonconforming virtual element extends the Morley triangular element to polygons for the approximation of the weak solution u ∊ V := H2 0 (\Omega) to the biharmonic equation. The abstract framework allows (even a mixture of) two examples of the local discrete spaces Vh(P) and a smoother allows rough source terms F ∊ V* =H^-2₀(Ω). The a priori and a posteriori error analysis in this paper circumvents any trace of second derivatives by some computable conforming companion operator J: V_h → V from the nonconforming virtual element space Vh. The operator J is a right-inverse of the interpolation operator and leads to optimal error estimates in piecewise Sobolev norms without any additional regularity assumptions on u ∊ V. As a smoother the companion operator modifies the discrete right-hand side and then allows a quasi-best approximation. An explicit residual-based a posteriori error estimator is reliable and efficient up to data oscillations. Numerical examples display the predicted empirical convergence rates for uniform and optimal convergence rates for adaptive mesh-refinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]