A posteriori error bounds for fully-discrete hp-discontinuous Galerkin timestepping methods for parabolic problems

We consider fully discrete time-space approximations of abstract linear parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs) consisting of an hp-version discontinuous Galerkin (DG) time stepping scheme in conjunction with standard (conforming) Galerkin discretizations in space. We derive abstract computable a posteriori error bounds resulting, for instance, in concrete bounds in L-infinity(I; L-2(Omega))- and L-2(I; H-1(Omega))-type norms when I is the temporal and Omega the spatial domain for the PDE. We base our methodology for the analysis on a novel space-time reconstruction approach. Our approach is flexible as it works for any type of elliptic error estimator and leaves their choice to the user. It also exhibits mesh-change estimators in a clear and concise way. We also show how our approach allows the derivation of such bounds in the H-1( I; H-1(Omega)) norm.