Solving 2D time‐fractional diffusion equations by a pseudospectral method and Mittag‐Leffler function evaluation

Two‐dimensional time‐fractional diffusion equations with given initial condition and homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions in a bounded domain are considered. A semidiscrete approximation scheme based on the pseudospectral method to the time‐fractional diffusion equation leads to a system of ordinary fractional differential equations. To preserve the high accuracy of the spectral approximation, an approach based on the evaluation of the Mittag‐Leffler function on matrix arguments is used for the integration along the time variable. Some examples along with numerical experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.