Stability and error analysis for a spectral Galerkin method for the Navier‐Stokes equations with H2 or H1 initial data

In this article we consider a spectral Galerkin method with a semi‐implicit Euler scheme for the two‐dimensional Navier‐Stokes equations with H² or H¹ initial data. The H²‐stability analysis of this spectral Galerkin method shows that for the smooth initial data the semi‐implicit Euler scheme admits a large time step. The L²‐error analysis of the spectral Galerkin method shows that for the smoother initial data the numerical solution u exhibits faster convergence on the time interval 0, 1] and retains the same convergence rate on the time interval 1, ∞). © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005.