  The present work develops hybrid multigrid methods for high-order
discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of elliptic problems. Fast matrix-free
operator evaluation on tensor product elements is used to devise a
computationally efficient PDE solver. The multigrid hierarchy exploits all
possibilities of geometric, polynomial, and algebraic coarsening, targeting
engineering applications on complex geometries. Additionally, a transfer from
discontinuous to continuous function spaces is performed within the multigrid
hierarchy. This does not only further reduce the problem size of the
coarse-grid problem, but also leads to a discretization most suitable for
state-of-the-art algebraic multigrid methods applied as coarse-grid solver. The
relevant design choices regarding the selection of optimal multigrid coarsening
strategies among the various possibilities are discussed with the metric of
computational costs as the driving force for algorithmic selections. We find
that a transfer to a continuous function space at highest polynomial degree (or
on the finest mesh), followed by polynomial and geometric coarsening, shows the
best overall performance. The success of this particular multigrid strategy is
due to a significant reduction in iteration counts as compared to a transfer
from discontinuous to continuous function spaces at lowest polynomial degree
(or on the coarsest mesh). The coarsening strategy with transfer to a
continuous function space on the finest level leads to a multigrid algorithm
that is robust with respect to the penalty parameter of the SIPG method.
Detailed numerical investigations are conducted for a series of examples
ranging from academic test cases to more complex, practically relevant
geometries. Performance comparisons to state-of-the-art methods from the
literature demonstrate the versatility and computational efficiency of the
proposed multigrid algorithms.
