Local discontinuous Galerkin methods with implicit–explicit BDF time marching for Newell–Whitehead–Segel equations

The Newell–Whitehead–Segel type equations with time-dependent Dirichlet boundary conditions are solved by the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method coupled with the implicit–explicit backward difference formulas (IMEX-BDF). With a suitable setting of numerical fluxes and by the aid of the multiplier technique and the a priori error assumption technique, the optimal error estimate for the corresponding fully discrete LDG-IMEX-BDF schemes is obtained by energy analysis, under the condition τ≤Ch1/s, where <i>h</i> and <i>τ</i> are mesh size and time step, respectively, the positive constant <i>C</i> is independent of <i>h</i>, and s=1,…,5 is the order of the IMEX-BDF method. Numerical experiments are also presented to verify the accuracy of the considered schemes.