A spectral method for parabolic differential equations (Q2376360)

The authors develop a spectral method for nonlinear parabolic equations. The domain under consideration is assumed to be sufficiently smooth such that there exists an invertibly twice-differentiable mapping that maps the domain into the unit ball. By considering a special spectral space that exploits the structure of orthogonal polynomials, the nonlinear parabolic PDE can be converted to a system of ODE for which efficient solution is available. Using a result of \textit{J. Douglas jun.} and \textit{T. Dupont} [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 7, 575--626 (1970; Zbl 0224.35048)], the authors have been able to prove the spectral convergence of their proposed method. Detailed implementations for 2D and 3D are clearly discussed. Numerical examples in 2D and 3D verify the spectral convergence theoretical results. This work is an important advance for spectral methods and is an extension of the previous work of the authors [Adv. Comput. Math. 33, No.~2, 169--189 (2010; Zbl 1196.65177)]. However, there are still some concerns about the feasibility of the method for a wider class of practical problems. The authors also frankly admit that their method will not work for piecewise smooth boundaries such as that of polygonal domains, and hence limiting the applicability of their method. Another difficulty in extending the method to more practical problems is how to deal with non-homogeneous boundary conditions. Though they proposed a technical approach to deal with a simple case, it does not seem to be practical.