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Trefftz schemes are high-order Galerkin methods whose discrete spaces are made of elementwise exact solutions of the underlying partial differential equation (PDE). Trefftz basis functions can be easily computed for many PDEs that are linear, homogeneous and have piecewise-constant coefficients. However, if the equation has variable coefficients, exact solutions are generally unavailable. Quasi-Trefftz methods overcome this limitation relying on elementwise ‘approximate solutions’ of the PDE, in the sense of Taylor polynomials. We define polynomial quasi-Trefftz spaces for general linear PDEs with smooth coefficients and source term, describe their approximation properties and, under a nondegeneracy condition, provide a simple algorithm to compute a basis. We then focus on a quasi-Trefftz DG method for variable-coefficient elliptic diffusion–advection–reaction problems, showing stability and high-order convergence of the scheme. The main advantage over standard DG schemes is the higher accuracy for comparable numbers of degrees of freedom. For nonhomogeneous problems with piecewise-smooth source term we propose to construct a local quasi-Trefftz particular solution and then solve for the difference. Numerical experiments in two and three space dimensions show the excellent properties of the method both in diffusion-dominated and advection-dominated problems. 

Trefftz methods are high-order Galerkin schemes in which all discrete functions are elementwise solution of the PDE to be approximated. They are viable only when the PDE is linear and its coefficients are piecewise-constant. We introduce a “quasi-Trefftz” discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for the discretisation of the acoustic wave equation with piecewise-smooth material parameters: the discrete functions are elementwise approximate PDE solutions. We show that the new discretisation enjoys the same excellent approximation properties as the classical Trefftz one, and prove stability and high-order convergence of the DG scheme. We introduce polynomial basis functions for the new discrete spaces and describe a simple algorithm to compute them. The technique we propose is inspired by the generalised plane waves previously developed for time-harmonic problems with variable coefficients; it turns out that in the case of the time-domain wave equation under consideration the quasi-Trefftz approach allows for polynomial basis functions.