skip to main content


Title: Error analysis of a linear numerical scheme for the Landau–Lifshitz equation with large damping parameters

A second‐order accurate, linear numerical method is analyzed for the Landau–Lifshitz equation with large damping parameters. This equation describes the dynamics of magnetization, with a non‐convexity constraint of unit length of the magnetization. The numerical method is based on the second‐order backward differentiation formula in time, combined with an implicit treatment for the linear diffusion term from the harmonic mapping part and explicit extrapolation for the nonlinear terms. Afterward, a projection step is applied to normalize the numerical solution at a point‐wise level. This numerical scheme has shown extensive advantages in the practical computations for the physical model with large damping parameters, which comes from the fact that only a linear system with constant coefficients (independent of both time and the updated magnetization) needs to be solved at each time step, and has greatly improved the numerical efficiency. Meanwhile, a theoretical analysis for this linear numerical scheme has not been available. In this paper, we provide a rigorous error estimate of the numerical scheme, in the discrete norm, under suitable regularity assumptions and reasonable ratio between the time step size and the spatial mesh size. In particular, the projection operation is nonlinear, and a stability estimate for the projection step turns out to be highly challenging. Such a stability estimate is derived in details, which will play an essential role in the convergence analysis for the numerical scheme, if the damping parameter is greater than 3.

 
more » « less
NSF-PAR ID:
10475393
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences
Volume:
46
Issue:
18
ISSN:
0170-4214
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: p. 18952-18974
Size(s):
["p. 18952-18974"]
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract

    We present the formulation and optimization of a Runge–Kutta-type time-stepping scheme for solving the shallow-water equations, aimed at substantially increasing the effective allowable time step over that of comparable methods. This scheme, called FB-RK(3,2), uses weighted forward–backward averaging of thickness data to advance the momentum equation. The weights for this averaging are chosen with an optimization process that employs a von Neumann–type analysis, ensuring that the weights maximize the admittable Courant number. Through a simplified local truncation error analysis and numerical experiments, we show that the method is at least second-order in time for any choice of weights and exhibits low dispersion and dissipation errors for well-resolved waves. Further, we show that an optimized FB-RK(3,2) can take time steps up to 2.8 times as large as a popular three-stage, third-order strong stability-preserving Runge–Kutta method in a quasi-linear test case. In fully nonlinear shallow-water test cases relevant to oceanic and atmospheric flows, FB-RK(3,2) outperforms SSPRK3 in admittable time step by factors roughly between 1.6 and 2.2, making the scheme approximately twice as computationally efficient with little to no effect on solution quality.

    Significance Statement

    The purpose of this work is to develop and optimize time-stepping schemes for models relevant to oceanic and atmospheric flows. Specifically, for the shallow-water equations we optimize for schemes that can take time steps as large as possible while retaining solution quality. We find that our optimized schemes can take time steps between 1.6 and 2.2 times larger than schemes that cost the same number of floating point operations, translating directly to a corresponding speedup. Our ultimate goal is to use these schemes in climate-scale simulations.

     
    more » « less
  2. Abstract

    The anisotropic phase‐field dendritic crystal growth model is a highly nonlinear system that couples the anisotropic Allen–Cahn equation and the thermal equation together. Due to the high anisotropy and nonlinear couplings in the system, how to develop an accurate and efficient, especially a fully decoupled scheme, has always been a challenging problem. To solve the challenge, in this article, we construct a novel fully decoupled numerical scheme which is also linear, energy stable, and second‐order time accurate. The key idea to realize the full decoupling structure is to introduce an ordinary differential equation to deal with the nonlinear coupling terms satisfying the so‐called “zero‐energy‐contribution” property. This scheme is very effective and easy to implement since only a few fully decoupled elliptic equations with constant coefficients need to be solved at each time step. We rigorously prove the solvability of each step and the unconditional energy stability, and perform a large number of numerical simulations in 2D and 3D to demonstrate its stability and accuracy numerically.

     
    more » « less
  3. A class of nonlinear Fokker–Planck equations with nonlocal interactions may include many important cases, such as porous medium equations with external potentials and aggregation–diffusion models. The trajectory equation of the Fokker–Plank equation can be derived based on an energetic variational approach. A structure‐preserving numerical scheme that is mass conservative, energy stable, uniquely solvable, and positivity preserving at a theoretical level has also been designed in the previous work. Moreover, the numerical scheme is shown to satisfy the discrete energetic dissipation law and preserve steady states and has been observed to be second order accurate in space and first‐order accurate time in various numerical experiments. In this work, we give the rigorous convergence analysis for the highly nonlinear numerical scheme. A careful higher order asymptotic expansion is needed to handle the highly nonlinear nature of the trajectory equation. In addition, two step error estimates (a rough estimate and a refined estimate) are necessary in the convergence proof. Different from a standard error estimate, the rough estimate is performed to control the nonlinear term. A few numerical results are also presented to verify the optimal convergence order and the preservation of equilibria.

     
    more » « less
  4. Abstract

    We propose and analyze a second order accurate in time, energy stable numerical scheme for the strongly anisotropic Cahn–Hilliard system, in which a biharmonic regularization has to be introduced to make the equation well‐posed. A convexity analysis on the anisotropic interfacial energy is necessary to overcome an essential difficulty associated with its highly nonlinear and singular nature. The second order backward differentiation formula temporal approximation is applied, combined with Fourier pseudo‐spectral spatial discretization. The nonlinear surface energy part is updated by an explicit extrapolation formula. Meanwhile, the energy stability analysis is enforced by the fact that all the second order functional derivatives of the energy stay uniformly bounded by a global constant. A Douglas‐Dupont type regularization is added to stabilize the numerical scheme, and a careful estimate ensures a modified energy stability with a uniform constraint for the regularization parameter . In turn, the combination with an appropriate treatment for the nonlinear double well potential terms leads to a weakly nonlinear scheme. More importantly, such an energy stability is in terms of the interfacial energy with respect to the original phase variable, which enables us to derive an optimal rate convergence analysis.

     
    more » « less
  5. null (Ed.)
    In this paper, we study the central discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method on overlapping meshes for second order wave equations. We consider the first order hyperbolic system, which is equivalent to the second order scalar equation, and construct the corresponding central DG scheme. We then provide the stability analysis and the optimal error estimates for the proposed central DG scheme for one- and multi-dimensional cases with piecewise P k elements. The optimal error estimates are valid for uniform Cartesian meshes and polynomials of arbitrary degree k  ≥ 0. In particular, we adopt the techniques in Liu et al . ( SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 56 (2018) 520–541; ESAIM: M2AN 54 (2020) 705–726) and obtain the local projection that is crucial in deriving the optimal order of convergence. The construction of the projection here is more challenging since the unknowns are highly coupled in the proposed scheme. Dispersion analysis is performed on the proposed scheme for one dimensional problems, indicating that the numerical solution with P 1 elements reaches its minimum with a suitable parameter in the dissipation term. Several numerical examples including accuracy tests and long time simulation are presented to validate the theoretical results. 
    more » « less