Error Estimates for the Variational Training of Neural Networks with Boundary Penalty

We establish estimates on the error made by the Deep Ritz Method for elliptic problems on the space $H^1(\Omega)$ with different boundary conditions. For Dirichlet boundary conditions, we estimate the error when the boundary values are approximately enforced through the boundary penalty method. Our results apply to arbitrary and in general non linear classes $V\subseteq H^1(\Omega)$ of ansatz functions and estimate the error in dependence of the optimization accuracy, the approximation capabilities of the ansatz class and -- in the case of Dirichlet boundary values -- the penalisation strength $\lambda$. For non-essential boundary conditions the error of the Ritz method decays with the same rate as the approximation rate of the ansatz classes. For essential boundary conditions, given an approximation rate of $r$ in $H^1(\Omega)$ and an approximation rate of $s$ in $L^2(\partial\Omega)$ of the ansatz classes, the optimal decay rate of the estimated error is $\min(s/2, r)$ and achieved by choosing $\lambda_n\sim n^{s}$. We discuss the implications for ansatz classes which are given through ReLU networks and the relation to existing estimates for finite element functions.