A- andB-stability for Runge-Kutta methods-characterizations and equivalence

Summary Using a special representation of Runge-Kutta methods (W-transformation), simple characterizations ofA-stability andB-stability have been obtained in [9, 8, 7]. In this article we will make this representation and their conclusions more transparent by considering the exact Runge-Kutta method. Finally we demonstrate by a numerical example that for difficult problemsB-stable methods are superior to methods which are onlyA-stable.Talk, presented at the conference on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the founding ofNumerische Mathematik, TU Munich, March 19–21, 1984