A spectral-infinite-element solution of Poisson's equation: an application to self gravity

We solve Poisson's equation by combining a spectral-element method with a mapped infinite-element method. We focus on problems in geostatics and geodynamics, where Earth's gravitational field is determined by Poisson's equation inside the Earth and Laplace's equation in the rest of space. Spectral elements are used to capture the internal field, and infinite elements are used to represent the external field. To solve the weak form of Poisson/Laplace equation, we use Gauss-Legendre-Lobatto quadrature in spectral elements inside the domain of interest. Outside the domain, we use Gauss-Radau quadrature in the infinite direction, and Gauss-Legendre-Lobatto quadrature in the other directions. We illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method by comparing the gravitational fields of a homogeneous sphere and the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) with (semi-)analytical solutions.