A new approach to the heat equation - an application of the decomposition method (Q1084577)

The paper is an application of the author's work ''Decomposition Method'' [''Stochastic Systems'' (1983; Zbl 0523.60056)] to the heat equation. The heat equation is considered because it is of physical significance and, as a special case of equations with are linear and deterministic, it is fascinating that the general method works also in such types of equations. The method being used in the paper is an analytical continuous approximation which is very rapidly convergent and shows the dependences, giving insight into the character and behavior of the solution just as in a closed-form solution. The method is applied to the equation \[ \nabla^ 2u-u_ t=g(x,y,z,t), \] but it can easily be generalized to parabolic equations of the form \[ \nabla^ 2u-ku_ t=g(x,y,z,t);\quad k=k(x,y,z,t), \] or the nonlinear equation \(u_ t=au_{xx}-bu_ x+cu^ 3\), where a; b; c may be not only functions of time but stochastic processes. The paper is clearly written and it is also important because, the proposed method can be applied in a very broad class of equations which include differential equations, systems of differential equations, differential delay, integro-differential, partial differential equations, and systems which can be nonlinear and stochastic even in the differential operators.