  In this work, we develop variational formulations of Petrov-Galerkin type for
one-dimensional fractional boundary value problems involving either a
Riemann-Liouville or Caputo derivative of order $\alpha\in(3/2, 2)$ in the
leading term and both convection and potential terms. They arise in the
mathematical modeling of asymmetric super-diffusion processes in heterogeneous
media. The well-posedness of the formulations and sharp regularity pickup of
the variational solutions are established. A novel finite element method is
developed, which employs continuous piecewise linear finite elements and
"shifted" fractional powers for the trial and test space, respectively. The new
approach has a number of distinct features: It allows deriving optimal error
estimates in both $L^2(D)$ and $H^1(D)$ norms; and on a uniform mesh, the
stiffness matrix of the leading term is diagonal and the resulting linear
system is well conditioned. Further, in the Riemann-Liouville case, an enriched
FEM is proposed to improve the convergence. Extensive numerical results are
presented to verify the theoretical analysis and robustness of the numerical
scheme.
