A pseudospectral Legendre method for hyperbolic equations with an improved stability condition (Q1819552)

A potential disadvantage of spectral methods for hyperbolic initial- boundary value problems lies in the tight stability requirements they may impose on any explicit time-integrator. In one space dimension, spectral methods typically have a stability condition \(\Delta t=O(N^{-2})\) when N collocation points are used and this compares badly with the \(O(N^{- 1})\) restriction in difference schemes employing N grid points. The present paper shows a spectral technique where the eigenvalues of the system of ordinary differential equations obtained by space discretization possess a O(N) bound. While the author asserts that explicit time-steppings can operate successfully under a \(\Delta t=O(N^{-1})\) condition, no formal stability analysis is performed in the paper. N. B. The study of the stability of the suggested technique has been recently furthered by \textit{LL. N. Trefethen} and \textit{M. R. Trummer} [An instability phenomenon in spectral methods, Numerical Analysis Report 86-1, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. It appears that in practice the barrier \(\Delta t=O(N^{-2})\) still applies.