Grid resonances, focusing and Benjamin-Feir instabilities in leapfrog time discretizations (Q1097658)

The authors consider the problem of instability of a class of discretizations of the equation \(U_ t+aU_ x+UU_ x=0\) \((a=const.)\). By using a multiple scales analysis they obtain and investigate both the grid resonance conditions and stability conditions in the following cases: 1) space semi-discretization and 2) leapfrog time discretization. It is shown how the so-called parasitic waves of purely numerical origin arise in the second case. The theoretical results are compared with the numerical ones. The authors conclude that their results show how the interaction between the physical wave and parasitic wave may cause the instabilities of the numerical solution, and pose some open questions connected with the problem.