Contrast-independent partially explicit time discretizations for nonlinear multiscale problems

Abstract

This work continues a line of works on developing partially explicit methods for multiscale problems. In our previous works, we have considered linear multiscale problems, where the spatial heterogeneities are at subgrid level and are not resolved. In these works, we have introduced contrast-independent partially explicit time discretizations for linear equations. The contrast-independent partially explicit time discretization divides the spatial space into two components: contrast dependent (fast) and contrast independent (slow) spaces defined via multiscale space decomposition. Following this decomposition, temporal splitting is proposed that treats fast components implicitly and slow components explicitly. The space decomposition and temporal splitting are chosen such that it guarantees a stability and formulate a condition for the time stepping. This condition is formulated as a condition on slow spaces. In this paper, we extend this approach to nonlinear problems. We propose a splitting approach and derive a condition that guarantees stability. This condition requires some type of contrast-independent spaces for slow components of the solution. We present numerical results and show that the proposed methods provide results similar to implicit methods with the time step that is independent of the contrast.