In this paper we consider the p-FEM for elliptic boundary value problems on tetrahedral meshes where the entries of the stiffness matrix are evaluated by numerical quadrature. Such a quadrature can be done by mapping the tetrahedron to a hexahedron via the Duffy transformation. We show that for tensor product Gauss-Lobatto-Jacobi quadrature formulas with q+1=p+1 points in each direction and shape functions that are adapted to the quadrature formula, one again has discrete stability for the fully discrete p-FEM. The present error analysis complements the work [Eibner/Melenk 2005] for the p-FEM on triangles/tetrahedra where it is shown that by adapting the shape functions to the quadrature formula, the stiffness matrix can be set up in optimal complexity.

In this paper we consider the p-FEM for elliptic boundary value problems on tetrahedral meshes where the entries of the stiffness matrix are evaluated by numerical quadrature. Such a quadrature can be done by mapping the tetrahedron to a hexahedron via the Duffy transformation. We show that for tensor product Gauss-Lobatto-Jacobi quadrature formulas with q+1=p+1 points in each direction and shape functions that are adapted to the quadrature formula, one again has discrete stability for the fully discrete p-FEM. The present error analysis complements the work [Eibner/Melenk 2005] for the p-FEM on triangles/tetrahedra where it is shown that by adapting the shape functions to the quadrature formula, the stiffness matrix can be set up in optimal complexity.