Stability and error analysis for spectral Galerkin method for the Navier–Stokes equations with L2 initial data

In this article we consider the spectral Galerkin method with the implicit/explicit Euler scheme for the two‐dimensional Navier–Stokes equations with the L² initial data. Due to the poor smoothness of the solution on [0,1), we use the the spectral Galerkin method based on high‐dimensional spectral space H_M and small time step Δt² on this interval. While on [1,∞), we use the spectral Galerkin method based on low‐dimensional spectral space H_m(m = O(M^1/2)) and large time step Δt. For the spectral Galerkin method, we provide the standard H²‐stability and the L²‐error analysis. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2007