A note on multistep methods and attracting sets of dynamical systems (Q1118363)

The authors have shown earlier [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 23, 986-995 (1986; Zbl 0613.65083)] that a one-step discretization of an ordinary differential equation, considered as a discrete time dynamical system, has a uniformly asymptotically stable attracting set near a uniformly asymptotically stable attractor of the differential equation for sufficiently small time steps. They used a Lyapunov function V to characterize the stability of the original attractor, a compact set of arbitrary geometric shape. The key to this result was an estimate of the form \(V(x^ h_{j+1})\leq e^{-ch}V(x^ h_ j)+Ch^{p+1},\) where the \(x^ h_ j\) are the iterates of a pth-order one-step method with time step h. The purpose of the present paper is to establish this estimate for multistep schemes. The proof involves recent results of \textit{T. Eirola} and \textit{O. Nevanlinna} [Numer. Math. 53, 559-569 (1988; Zbl 0657.65096)].