Estimates of convergence rate of the projection-difference method for hyperbolic equations (Q1397501)

Consider the Cauchy problem for the abstract hyperbolic equation: \[ u''(t)+ A(t) u(t)+ B(t) u(t)= f(t),\qquad t\in [0,T];\quad u(0)= u'(0)= 0, \] where the operators \(A(t)\) are unbounded and selfadjoint in a Hilbert space. The author investigates the convergence of an approximate scheme, which is a combination of a combination of a Galerkin method in space and a three-layer difference scheme in time. The main results of the paper refer to the asymptotic convergence of the computational scheme in some energy norms in terms of the discretization parameters. The first estimate is valid under the same smoothness assumption as the existence and uniqueness theorem regarding the differential equation. The order of convergence can be increased provided that more smoothness is required from the exact solution.