On the convergence of collocation solutions in continuous piecewise polynomial spaces for Volterra integral equations (Q727897)

This paper investigates the convergence of collocation solutions in spaces of continuous piecewise polynomials for second kind Volterra integral equations. The authors consider separately continuous collocation solutions for Volterra integral equations with and without delay, and in each case, provide a new convergence result that provides guaranteed convergence, subject to a given condition on the collocation parameters, with global order of convergence independent of the underlying step length \(h\). The paper concludes with some numerical examples and a commentary on the relative merits of continuous and discontinuous piecewise polynomials as the basis for an approximate solution.