A class of momentum-preserving finite difference schemes for the Korteweg-de Vries equation (Q2300701)

The authors propose a momentum-preserving numerical integrator for the KdV equation \[ u_t= -\epsilon uu_x -\mu u_{xxx}, \] in the Hamiltonian form \[ u_t = {\mathcal J}(u)\frac{\delta {\mathcal H}}{\delta u}, \; {\mathcal J}(u) = -\frac{\epsilon}{3}(u\partial_ x + \partial_ x u) - \mu u_{xxx},\quad {\mathcal H } = \frac{1}{2}u^2. \] The skew-adjoint Poisson operator \({\mathcal J}(u)\) is discretized in space by finite differences, leading to the corresponding skew-gradient system. The resulting system of Hamiltonian ordinary differential equations is discretized in time by the leap-frog method and its three-level variant. Three well-known examples of KdV equations are solved using these methods. It is shown that the momentum can be preserved up to machine accuracy. In all numerical examples, the phase errors are large. KdV-type equations have been solved by means of many geometric integrators, like symplectic, multisymplectic and energy-preserving methods, where the cubic Hamiltonian and the quadratic momentum are well-preserved over long time integration. Note that the mass is a linear invariant and is preserved by all Runge-Kutta methods up to machine accuracy. The leap-frog method does not show the same accuracy and performance as the available structure-preserving integrators for the KdV equation.