An Optimal Block Diagonal Preconditioner for Heterogeneous Saddle Point Problems in Phase Separation

The phase separation processes are typically modeled by Cahn-Hilliard equations. This equation was originally introduced to model phase separation in binary alloys; where phase stands for concentration of different components in alloy. When the binary alloy under preparation is subjected to a rapid reduction in temperature below a critical temperature, it has been experimentally observed that the concentration changes from a mixed state to a visibly distinct spatially separated two phase for binary alloy. This rapid reduction in the temperature, the so-called “deep quench limit”, is modeled effectively by obstacle potential. The discretization of Cahn-Hilliard equation with obstacle potential leads to a block 2×2 non-linear system, where the (1, 1) block has a non-linear and non-smooth term. Recently a globally convergent Newton Schur method was proposed for the non-linear Schur complement corresponding to this non-linear system. The proposed method is similar to an inexact active set method in the sense that the active sets are first approximately identified by solving a quadratic obstacle problem corresponding to the (1, 1) block of the block 2 × 2 system, and later solving a reduced linear system by annihilating the rows and columns corresponding to identified active sets. For solving the quadratic obstacle problem, various optimal multigrid like methods have been proposed. In this paper, we study a non-standard norm that is equivalent to applying a block diagonal preconditioner to the reduced linear systems. Numerical experiments confirm the optimality of the solver and convergence independent of problem parameters on sufficiently fine mesh.