A parameter-uniform numerical method for time-dependent singularly perturbed differential-difference equations

A numerical study is made for solving a class of time-dependent singularly perturbed convection–diffusion problems with retarded terms which often arise in computational neuroscience. To approximate the retarded terms, a Taylor’s series expansion has been used and the resulting time-dependent singularly perturbed differential equation is approximated using parameter-uniform numerical methods comprised of a standard implicit finite difference scheme to discretize in the temporal direction on a uniform mesh by means of Rothe’s method and a B-spline collocation method in the spatial direction on a piecewise-uniform mesh of Shishkin type. The method is shown to be accurate of order O(M⁻¹ + N⁻² ln³N), where M and N are the number of mesh points used in the temporal direction and in the spatial direction respectively. An extensive amount of analysis has been carried out to prove the uniform convergence with respect to the singular perturbation parameter. Numerical results are given to illustrate the parameter-uniform convergence of the numerical approximations. Comparisons of the numerical solutions are performed with an upwind and midpoint upwind finite difference scheme on a piecewise-uniform mesh to demonstrate the efficiency of the method.     

A layer adaptive B‐spline collocation method for singularly perturbed one‐dimensional parabolic problem with a boundary turning point

In this article, we develop a parameter uniform numerical method for a class of singularly perturbed parabolic equations with a multiple boundary turning point on a rectangular domain. The coefficient of the first derivative with respect to x is given by the formula a₀(x, t)x^p, where a₀(x, t) ≥ α > 0 and the parameter p ∈ [1,∞) takes the arbitrary value. For small values of the parameter ε, the solution of this particular class of problem exhibits the parabolic boundary layer in a neighborhood of the boundary x = 0 of the domain. We use the implicit Euler method to discretize the temporal variable on uniform mesh and a B‐spline collocation method defined on piecewise uniform Shishkin mesh to discretize the spatial variable. Asymptotic bounds for the derivatives of the solution are established by decomposing the solution into smooth and singular component. These bounds are applied in the convergence analysis of the proposed scheme on Shishkin mesh. The resulting method is boundary layer resolving and has been shown almost second‐order accurate in space and first‐order accurate in time. It is also shown that the proposed method is uniformly convergent with respect to the singular perturbation parameter ε. Some numerical results are given to confirm the predicted theory and comparison of numerical results made with a scheme consisting of a standard upwind finite difference operator on a piecewise uniform Shishkin mesh. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 27: 1143–1164, 2011     

A singular perturbation approach to solve Burgers–Huxley equation via monotone finite difference scheme on layer-adaptive mesh

This paper deals with a numerical method for solving one-dimensional unsteady Burgers–Huxley equation with the viscosity coefficient ε. The parameter ε takes any values from the half open interval (0, 1]. At small values of the parameter ε, an outflow boundary layer is produced in the neighborhood of right part of the lateral surface of the domain and the problem can be considered as a non-linear singularly perturbed problem with a singular perturbation parameter ε. Using singular perturbation analysis, asymptotic bounds for the derivatives of the solution are established by decomposing the solution into smooth and singular components. We construct a numerical scheme that comprises of implicit-Euler method to discretize in temporal direction on uniform mesh and a monotone hybrid finite difference operator to discretize the spatial variable with piecewise uniform Shishkin mesh. To obtain better accuracy, we use central finite difference scheme in the boundary layer region. Shishkin meshes are refined in the boundary layer region, therefore stability constraint is satisfied by proposed scheme. Quasilinearization process is used to tackle the non-linearity and it is shown that quasilinearization process converges quadratically. The method has been shown to be first order uniformly accurate in the temporal variable, and in the spatial direction it is first order parameter uniform convergent in the outside region of boundary layer, and almost second order parameter uniform convergent in the boundary layer region. Accuracy and uniform convergence of the proposed method is demonstrated by numerical examples and comparison of numerical results made with the other existing methods.     

Error estimates of finite volume element method for the pollution in groundwater flow

In this article, we study the finite volume element methods for numerical solution of the pollution in groundwater flow in a two‐dimensional convex polygonal domain. These type flow are uniform transport in a fully saturated incompressible porous media, which may be anisotropic with respect to hydraulic conductivity, but features a direction independent of dispersivity. A fully finite volume scheme is analyzed in this article. The discretization is defined via a planar mesh consisting of piecewise triangles. Optimal order error estimates in H¹ and L² norms are obtained. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2009     

High‐order numerical methods for one‐dimensional parabolic singularly perturbed problems with regular layers

In this work we construct and analyze some finite difference schemes used to solve a class of time‐dependent one‐dimensional convection‐diffusion problems, which present only regular layers in their solution. We use the implicit Euler or the Crank‐Nicolson method to discretize the time variable and a HODIE finite difference scheme, defined on a piecewise uniform Shishkin mesh, to discretize the spatial variable. In both cases we prove that the numerical method is uniformly convergent with respect to the diffusion parameter, having order near two in space and order one or 3/2, depending on the method used, in time. We show some numerical examples which illustrate the theoretical results, in the case of using the Euler implicit method, and give better numerical behaviour than that predicted theoretically, showing order two in time and order N^?2log²N in space, if the Crank‐Nicolson scheme is used to discretize the time variable. Finally, we construct a numerical algorithm by combining a third order A‐stable SDIRK with two stages and a third‐order HODIE difference scheme, showing its uniformly convergent behavior, reaching order three, up to a logarithmic factor. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005     

A parameter‐uniform scheme for the parabolic singularly perturbed problem with a delay in time

In this paper, a parameter‐uniform numerical scheme for the solution of singularly perturbed parabolic convection–diffusion problems with a delay in time defined on a rectangular domain is suggested. The presence of the small diffusion parameter ? leads to a parabolic right boundary layer. A collocation method consisting of cubic B ‐spline basis functions on an appropriate piecewise‐uniform mesh is used to discretize the system of ordinary differential equations obtained by using Rothe's method on an equidistant mesh in the temporal direction. The parameter‐uniform convergence of the method is shown by establishing the theoretical error bounds. The numerical results of the test problems validate the theoretical error bounds.     

A finite volume method on general surfaces and its error estimates

In this paper, we study a finite volume method and its error estimates for the numerical solution of some model second order elliptic partial differential equations defined on a smooth surface. The discretization is defined via a surface mesh consisting of piecewise planar triangles and piecewise polygons. The optimal error estimates of the approximate solution are proved in both the H¹ and L² norms which are of first order and second order respectively under mesh regularity assumptions. Some numerical tests are also carried out to experimentally verify our theoretical analysis.     

Superconvergence of the direct discontinuous Galerkin method for a time‐fractional initial‐boundary value problem

A time‐fractional reaction–diffusion initial‐boundary value problem with periodic boundary condition is considered on Q ? Ω × [0, T] , where Ω is the interval [0, l] . Typical solutions of such problem have a weak singularity at the initial time t = 0. The numerical method of the paper uses a direct discontinuous Galerkin (DDG) finite element method in space on a uniform mesh, with piecewise polynomials of degree k ≥ 2 . In the temporal direction we use the L1 approximation of the Caputo derivative on a suitably graded mesh. We prove that at each time level of the mesh, our L1‐DDG solution is superconvergent of order k + 2 in L²(Ω) to a particular projection of the exact solution. Moreover, the L1‐DDG solution achieves superconvergence of order (k + 2) in a discrete L²(Q) norm computed at the Lobatto points, and order (k + 1) superconvergence in a discrete H¹(Q) seminorm at the Gauss points; numerical results show that these estimates are sharp.     

Uniform convergence analysis of hybrid numerical scheme for singularly perturbed problems of mixed type

In this article, we consider a class of singularly perturbed mixed parabolic‐elliptic problems whose solutions possess both boundary and interior layers. To solve these problems, a hybrid numerical scheme is proposed and it is constituted on a special rectangular mesh which consists of a layer resolving piecewise‐uniform Shishkin mesh in the spatial direction and a uniform mesh in the temporal direction. The domain under consideration is partitioned into two subdomains. For the spatial discretization, the proposed scheme is comprised of the classical central difference scheme in the first subdomain and a hybrid finite difference scheme in the second subdomain, whereas the time derivative in the given problem is discretized by the backward‐Euler method. We prove that the method converges uniformly with respect to the perturbation parameter with almost second‐order spatial accuracy in the discrete supremum norm. Numerical results are finally presented to validate the theoretical results.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 30: 1931–1960, 2014     

Grid approximation of a parabolic convection-diffusion equation on a priori adapted grids: ε-uniformly convergent schemes

The boundary value problem for a singularly perturbed parabolic convection-diffusion equation is considered. A finite difference scheme on a priori (sequentially) adapted grids is constructed and its convergence is examined. The construction of the scheme on a priori adapted grids is based on a majorant of the singular component of the grid solution that makes it possible to a priori find a subdomain in which the grid solution should be further refined given the perturbation parameter ε, the size of the uniform mesh in x, the desired accuracy of the grid solution, and the prescribed number of iterations K used to refine the solution. In the subdomains where the solution is refined, the grid problems are solved on uniform grids. The error of the solution thus constructed weakly depends on ε. The scheme converges almost ε-uniformly; namely, it converges under the condition N ^?1 = o(ε^v), where v = v(K) can be chosen arbitrarily small when K is sufficiently large. If a piecewise uniform grid is used instead of a uniform one at the final Kth iteration, the difference scheme converges ε-uniformly. For this piecewise uniform grid, the ratio of the mesh sizes in x on the parts of the mesh with a constant size (outside the boundary layer and inside it) is considerably less than that for the known ε-uniformly convergent schemes on piecewise uniform grids.     

Approximation of the solution and its derivative for the singularly perturbed Black-Scholes equation with nonsmooth initial data

A problem for the black-Scholes equation that arises in financial mathematics is reduced, by a transformation of variables, to the Cauchy problem for a singularly perturbed parabolic equation with the variables x, t and a perturbation parameter ɛ, ɛ ∈ (0, 1]. This problem has several singularities such as the unbounded domain, the piecewise smooth initial function (its first-order derivative in x has a discontinuity of the first kind at the point x = 0), an interior (moving in time) layer generated by the piecewise smooth initial function for small values of the parameter ɛ, etc. In this paper, a grid approximation of the solution and its first-order derivative is studied in a finite domain including the interior layer. On a uniform mesh, using the method of additive splitting of a singularity of the interior layer type, a special difference scheme is constructed that allows us to ɛ-uniformly approximate both the solution to the boundary value problem and its first-order derivative in x with convergence orders close to 1 and 0.5, respectively. The efficiency of the constructed scheme is illustrated by numerical experiments. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

A fourth-order finite difference scheme for two-dimensional nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations

A finite difference scheme for the two-dimensional, second-order, nonlinear elliptic equation is developed. The difference scheme is derived using the local solution of the differential equation. A 13-point stencil on a uniform mesh of size h is used to derive the finite difference scheme, which has a truncation error of order h⁴. Well-known iterative methods can be employed to solve the resulting system of equations. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the fourth-order convergence of the scheme. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A robust finite difference scheme for pricing American put options with Singularity-Separating method

In this paper we present a stable numerical method for the linear complementary problem arising from American put option pricing. The numerical method is based on a hybrid finite difference spatial discretization on a piecewise uniform mesh and an implicit time stepping technique. The scheme is stable for arbitrary volatility and arbitrary interest rate. We apply some tricks to derive the error estimates for the direct application of finite difference method to the linear complementary problem. We use the Singularity-Separating method to remove the singularity of the non-smooth payoff function. It is proved that the scheme is second-order convergent with respect to the spatial variable. Numerical results support the theoretical results.     

Uniform grid approximation of nonsmooth solutions with improved convergence for a singularly perturbed convection-diffusion equation with characteristic layers

A mixed boundary value problem for a singularly perturbed elliptic convection-diffusion equation with constant coefficients in a square domain is considered. Dirichlet conditions are specified on two sides orthogonal to the flow, and Neumann conditions are set on the other two sides. The right-hand side and the boundary functions are assumed to be sufficiently smooth, which ensures the required smoothness of the desired solution in the domain, except for neighborhoods of the corner points. Only zero-order compatibility conditions are assumed to hold at the corner points. The problem is solved numerically by applying an inhomogeneous monotone difference scheme on a rectangular piecewise uniform Shishkin mesh. The inhomogeneity of the scheme lies in that the approximating difference equations are not identical at different grid nodes but depend on the perturbation parameter. Under the assumptions made, the numerical solution is proved to converge ?-uniformly to the exact solution in a discrete uniform metric at an O(N ^?3/2ln² N) rate, where N is the number of grid nodes in each coordinate direction.     

A class of difference scheme for solving telegraph equation by new non-polynomial spline methods

In this paper, by using a new non-polynomial parameters cubic spline in space direction and compact finite difference in time direction, we get a class of new high accuracy scheme of O(τ⁴ + h²) and O(τ⁴ + h⁴) for solving telegraph equation if we suitably choose the cubic spline parameters. Meanwhile, stability condition of the difference scheme has been carried out. Finally, numerical examples are used to illustrate the efficiency of the new difference scheme.     

Direct numerical method for an inverse problem of hyperbolic equations

A coefficient inverse problem of the one-dimensional hyperbolic equation with overspecified boundary conditions is solved by the finite difference method. The computation is carried out in the x direction instead of the usual t direction. The original boundary condition and the overspecified boundary data are used as the new initial conditions, and the original data at t = 0 are used to compute the coefficient directly. The computation time used by this scheme is almost equal to that for solving the hyperbolic equation in the same region once, even though the inverse problem is essentially nonlinear and hence more difficult to solve. An error estimate is obtained that guarantees the stability of the scheme marching in the x direction. Several numerical experiments are carried out to show the convergence and other properties of the scheme. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A compact finite difference scheme for 2D reaction–diffusion singularly perturbed problems

In this work we define a compact finite difference scheme of positive type to solve a class of 2D reaction–diffusion elliptic singularly perturbed problems. We prove that if the new scheme is constructed on a piecewise uniform mesh of Shishkin type, it provides better approximations than the classical central finite difference scheme. Moreover, the uniform parameter bound of the error shows that the scheme is third order convergent in the maximum norm when the singular perturbation parameter is sufficiently small. Some numerical experiments illustrate in practice the result of convergence proved theoretically.     

A second order explicit finite element scheme to multidimensional conservation laws and its convergence

A second order explicit finite element scheme is given for the numerical computation to multi-dimensional scalar conservation laws.L ^p convergence to entropy solutions is proved under some usual conditions. For two-dimensional problems, uniform mesh, and sufficiently smooth solutions a second order error estimate inL ² is proved under a stronger condition, Δt≤Ch ^2/4     

Finite difference methods for a nonlinear and strongly coupled heat and moisture transport system in textile materials

In this paper, we study heat and moisture transport through porous textile materials with phase change, described by a degenerate, nonlinear and strongly coupled parabolic system. An uncoupled finite difference method with semi-implicit Euler scheme in time direction is proposed for the system. We prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution of the finite difference system. The optimal error estimates in both discrete L ² and H ¹ norms are obtained under the condition that the mesh sizes τ and h are smaller than a positive constant, which depends solely upon physical parameters involved. Numerical results are presented to confirm our theoretical analysis and compared with experimental data.