Approximation of the RLW equation by the least square cubic \(B\)-spline finite element method (Q5950107)

The paper describes a numerical method to solve the regularized long wave (RLW) equation which is a third order evolution equation with a quadratic nonlinearity. The discretization of this evolutionary partial differential equation in one space dimension assuming homogeneous boundary conditions is based on a least squares technique. Using space-time cubic B-splines as trial functions together with a piecewize linearization of the nonlinear term, the minimization of the residual becomes equivalent to a Petrov-Galerkin method. The resulting septadiagonal linear system is solved with a direct solver, i.e. with a Thomas algorithm. Some numerical results illustrate the validity of the method, considering a test problem with known exact solution exhibiting solitons.