Single and multidomain Chebyshev collocation methods for the Korteweg-de Vries equation (Q582028)

The author considers spectral numerical approximation to the nonlinear initial value problem: \(u_ t+(\delta +\sigma u)u_ x+\alpha u_{xxx}=0,\) \(x\in R,\quad 0\leq t\leq T;\) \(u(x,0)=u(x),\) where \(\delta\), \(\sigma\), \(\alpha\) are positive numbers. Restricting the space domain to an interval \((x_ L,x_ R)\) (which is sufficiently large in comparison with the ``characteristic size'' of the problem) two boundary conditions are considered: \[ u(x_ L)=0,\quad u(x_ R)=0,\quad u_ x(x_ R)=0\quad and\quad u(x_ L)=0,\quad u_ x(x_ R)=0,\quad u_{xx}(x_ R)=0. \] Collocation methods using Chebyshev polynomial expansions are used for space discretization of the boundary value problem. Both single and multidomain approaches are discussed. The numerical analysis of the space discretization gives conditions for temporal discretization. Theoretical results are tested by several numerical experiments.