A linear iteration algorithm for a second-order energy stable scheme for a thin film model without slope selection (Q461256)

This paper presents a linear iteration algorithm to implement a second order accurate and energy stable vertex splitting scheme for an epitaxial thin film growth model without slope selection. Numerical simulations of the \(L^2\) gradient flow of the energy with high order accuracy and energy stability have attracted great attention over the years. As reported in recent work [\textit{J. Shen} et al., SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 50, No. 1, 105--125 (2012; Zbl 1247.65088)], the energy stability is preserved by a careful choice of the second-order approximation (in time) for the nonlinear term of the energy functional. Especially due to the complicated terms appearing in the fractional quotients, the resulting scheme is highly nonlinear and its numerical implementation is highly nontrivial. This paper proposes a linear iteration solver to implement it, with an introduction of second order accurate \(O(s^2)\) (where \(s\) is the time step size) artificial diffusion term in the form of Douglas-Dupont regularization. A contraction mapping property is thus assured and the nonlinear term is treated explicitly at each iteration stage with the help of FFT in a collocation Fourier spectral differentiation setting. In addition to the unconditional energy stability and unique solvability of this second order scheme, the paper presents a detailed analysis showing convergence for the numerical scheme in a discrete \(L^\infty(0,T;H^1)\cap L^2(0,T;H^3)\) norm. Some numerical simulation results are provided to support the efficiency of the linear iteration solver and the convergence of the scheme.