Positive definiteness of real quadratic forms resulting from the variable-step L1-type approximations of convolution operators

The positive definiteness of real quadratic forms with convolution structures plays an important rolein stability analysis for time-stepping schemes for nonlocal operators. In this work, we present a novel analysistool to handle discrete convolution kernels resulting from variable-step approximations for convolution operators.More precisely, for a class of discrete convolution kernels relevant to variable-step L1-type time discretizations, weshow that the associated quadratic form is positive definite under some easy-to-check algebraic conditions. Ourproof is based on an elementary constructing strategy by using the properties of discrete orthogonal convolutionkernels and discrete complementary convolution kernels. To our knowledge, this is the first general result onsimple algebraic conditions for the positive definiteness of variable-step discrete convolution kernels. Using theunified theory, we obtain the stability for some simple nonuniform time-stepping schemes straightforwardly.

DISCRETE ENERGY ANALYSIS OF THE THIRD-ORDER VARIABLE-STEP BDF TIME-STEPPING FOR DIFFUSION EQUATIONS

This is one of our series works on discrete energy analysis of the variable-step BDF schemes.In this part,we present stability and convergence analysis of the third-order BDF(BDF3)schemes with variable steps for linear diffusion equations,see,e.g.,[SIAM J.Numer.Anal.,58:2294-2314]and[Math.Comp.,90:1207-1226]for our previous works on the BDF2 scheme.To this aim,we first build up a discrete gradient structure of the variable-step BDF3 formula under the condition that the adjacent step ratios are less than 1.4877,by which we can establish a discrete energy dissipation law.Mesh-robust stability and convergence analysis in the L^(2) norm are then obtained.Here the mesh robustness means that the solution errors are well controlled by the maximum time-step size but independent of the adjacent time-step ratios.We also present numerical tests to support our theoretical results.

无倾斜选择的分子束外延模型变步长BDF2格式的最优误差估计

对于没有斜率选择的分子束外延模型,具有可变时间步长的两步向后微分公式(BDF2)的稳定性和收敛性仍未被完全解决。在本文中,我们首先证明了该BDF2格式在新的相邻时间步长比条件下保持修正的能量耗散定律:r_(k)=τ_(k)/τ_(k-1)≤4.8645-δ,其中δ>0是给定的任意小常数。然后,我们介绍了最近发展的离散正交卷积(DOC)和离散互补卷积(DCC)核技巧,并在新的比率条件r_(k)≤4.8645-δ下给出了BDF2格式的鲁棒且最优的二阶收敛性。鲁棒性意味着,除了r_(k)≤4.8645-δ以外,收敛性不需要其他时间步长上的约束条件。此外,我们的分析表明,使用一阶BDF1格式计算第一步数值解足以确保全局最优收敛阶。也就是说,选择BDF1格式计算起始步的数值解不会导致全局二阶收敛的损失。数值算例验证了我们的理论分析。

Analysis of the second-order BDF scheme with variable steps for the molecular beam epitaxial model without slope selection

In this work,we are concerned with the stability and convergence analysis of the second-order backward difference formula(BDF2)with variable steps for the molecular beam epitaxial model without slope selection.We first show that the variable-step BDF2 scheme is convex and uniquely solvable under a weak time-step constraint.Then we show that it preserves an energy dissipation law if the adjacent time-step ratios satisfy r_(k):=τ_(k)/τ_(k-1)<3.561.Moreover,with a novel discrete orthogonal convolution kernels argument and some new estimates on the corresponding positive definite quadratic forms,the L^(2)norm stability and rigorous error estimates are established,under the same step-ratio constraint that ensures the energy stability,i.e.,0<r_(k)<3.561.This is known to be the best result in the literature.We finally adopt an adaptive time-stepping strategy to accelerate the computations of the steady state solution and confirm our theoretical findings by numerical examples.