Laguerre and composite Legendre-Laguerre dual-Petrov-Galerkin methods for third-order equations (Q864075)

The authors present two Galerkin methods for the numerical solution of boundary value problems for (ordinary or partial) differential equations of order 3 on semi-infinite intervals. This includes, in particular, equations of Korteweg-de Vries type. As usual, the boundary conditions are assumed to be homogeneous; one condition is assumed to be given at the finite end and two conditions at \(\infty\). The first method uses Laguerre functions as test and trial functions. However, the boundary conditions prescribed on the test functions are dual to those demanded from the trial functions. A convergence and stability analysis is provided, and numerical examples accompany the theory. For the second method, the basic interval is split at some finite point, and the method described above is applied to the semi-infinite subinterval whereas a similar method based on Legendre polynomials is used for the remaining finite interval.