A finite element pressure gradient stabilization for the Stokes equations based on local projections

We present a variant of the classical weighted least-squares stabilization for the Stokes equations. Compared to the original formulation, the new method has improved accuracy properties, especially near boundaries. Furthermore, no modification of the right-hand side is needed, and implementation is simplified, especially for generalizations to more complicated equations. The approach is based on local projections of the residual terms which are used in order to achieve consistency of the method, avoiding local evaluation of the strong form of the differential operator. We prove stability and give a priori and a posteriori error estimates. We show convergence of an iterative method which uses a simplified stabilized discretization as preconditioner. Numerical experiments indicate that the approach presented is at least as accurate as the original method, but offers some algorithmic advantages. The ideas presented here also apply to the Navier-Stokes equations. This is the topic of forthcoming work.