Strong Consistency and Thomas Decomposition of Finite Difference Approximations to Systems of Partial Differential Equations

Abstract

For a wide class of polynomially nonlinear systems of partial differential equations we suggest an algorithmic approach that combines differential and difference algebra to analyze s(trong)-consistency of finite difference approximations. Our approach is applicable to regular solution grids. For the grids of this type we give a new definition of s-consistency for finite difference approximations which generalizes our definition given earlier for Cartesian grids. The algorithmic verification of s-consistency presented in the paper is based on the use of both differential and difference Thomas decomposition. First, we apply the differential decomposition to the input system, resulting in a partition of its solution space. Then, to the output subsystem that contains a solution of interest we apply a difference analogue of the differential Thomas decomposition which allows to check the s-consistency. For linear and some quasi-linear differential systems one can also apply difference Gröbner bases for the s-consistency analysis. We illustrate our methods and algorithms by a number of examples, which include Navier-Stokes equations for viscous incompressible flow.