An embedded corrector problem to approximate the homogenized coefficients of an elliptic equation

We consider a diffusion equation with highly oscillatory coefficients that admits a homogenized limit. As an alternative to standard corrector problems, we introduce here an embedded corrector problem, written as a diffusion equation in the whole space, in which the diffusion matrix is uniform outside some ball of radius R. Using that problem, we next introduce three approximations of the homogenized coefficients. These approximations, which are variants of the standard approximations obtained using truncated (supercell) corrector problems, are shown to converge to the homogenized coefficient when R→∞. We also discuss efficient numerical methods to solve the embedded corrector problem.