A lower order element for the linear elasticity problem in 3D

This paper constructs a lower order mixed finite element for the linear elasticity problem in 3D. The discrete stresses are piecewise cubic polynomials, and the discrete displacements are discontinuous piecewise quadratic polynomials. The continuity of the discrete stress space is characterized by moving all the edge degrees of freedom of the analogous Hu-Zhang stress element for $P_3$ [Hu, Zhang, Sci. Math. China, 2015, Hu, J. Comput. Math., 2015] to the faces. The macro-element technique is used to define an interpolation operator for proving the discrete stability.