The main purpose of this paper is to study the stability and error estimates of the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) methods coupled with multi-step implicit-explicit (IMEX) time discretization schemes, for solving time-dependent incompressible fluid flows. We will give theoretical analysis for the Oseen equation, and assess the performance of the schemes for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations numerically. For the Oseen equation, using first order IMEX time discretization as an example, we show that the IMEX-LDG scheme is unconditionally stable for $\Qcal_k$ elements on cartesian meshes, in the sense that the time-step $\dt$ is only required to be {bounded from above} by a positive constant independent of the spatial mesh size $h$. Furthermore, by the aid of the \emph{Stokes projection} and an elaborate energy analysis, we obtain the $L^{\infty}(L^2)$ optimal error estimates for both the velocity and the stress (gradient of velocity), in both space and time. By the \emph{inf-sup} argument, we also obtain the $L^{\infty}(L^2)$ optimal error estimates for the pressure. Numerical experiments are given to validate our main results.

In this paper we generalize a new type of compact Hermite weighted essentially non-oscillatory (HWENO) limiter for the Runge-Kutta discontinuous Galerkin (RKDG) method, which was recently developed for structured meshes, to two dimensional unstructured meshes. The main idea of this HWENO limiter is to reconstruct the new polynomial by the usage of the entire polynomials of the DG solution from the target cell and its neighboring cells in a least squares fashion while maintaining the conservative property, then use the classical WENO methodology to form a convex combination of these reconstructed polynomials based on the smoothness indicators and associated nonlinear weights. The main advantage of this new HWENO limiter is the robustness for very strong shocks and simplicity in implementation especially for the unstructured meshes considered in this paper, since only information from the target cell and its immediate neighbors is needed. Numerical results for both scalar and system equations are provided to test and verify the good performance of this new limiter.

Numerical schemes provably preserving the positivity of density and pressure are highly desirable for ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), but the rigorous positivity-preserving (PP) analysis remains challenging. The difficulties mainly arise from the intrinsic complexity of the MHD equations as well as the indeterminate relation between the PP property and the divergence-free condition on the magnetic field. This paper presents the first rigorous PP analysis of conservative schemes with the Lax--Friedrichs (LF) flux for 1D and multidimensional ideal MHD. The significant innovation is the discovery of the theoretical connection between the PP property and a discrete divergence-free (DDF) condition. This connection is established through the generalized LF splitting properties, which are alternatives to the usually expected LF splitting property that does not hold for ideal MHD. The generalized LF splitting properties involve a number of admissible states strongly coupled by the DDF condition, making their derivation very difficult. We derive these properties via a novel equivalent form of the admissible state set and an important inequality, which is skillfully constructed by technical estimates. Rigorous PP analysis is then presented for finite volume and discontinuous Galerkin schemes with the LF flux on uniform Cartesian meshes. In the 1D case, the PP property is proved for the first-order scheme with proper numerical viscosity, and also for arbitrarily high-order schemes under conditions accessible by a PP limiter. In the 2D case, we show that the DDF condition is necessary and crucial for achieving the PP property. It is observed that even slightly violating the proposed DDF condition may cause failure to preserve the positivity of pressure. We prove that the 2D LF type scheme with proper numerical viscosity preserves both the positivity and the DDF condition. Sufficient conditions are derived for 2D PP high-order schemes, and extension to 3D is discussed. Numerical examples provided in the supplementary material further confirm the theoretical findings.

The gas dynamics equations, coupled with a static gravitational field, admit the hydrostatic balance where the flux produced by the pressure is exactly canceled by the gravitational source term. Many astrophysical problems involve the hydrodynamical evolution in a gravitational field, therefore it is essential to correctly capture the effect of gravitational force in the simulations. Improper treatment of the gravitational force can lead to a solution which either oscillates around the equilibrium, or deviates from the equilibrium after a long time run. In this paper we design high order well-balanced finite difference WENO schemes to this system, which can preserve the hydrostatic balance state exactly and at the same time can maintain genuine high order accuracy. Numerical tests are performed to verify high order accuracy, well-balanced property, and good resolution for smooth and discontinuous solutions. The main purpose of the well-balanced schemes designed in this paper is to well resolve small perturbations of the hydrostatic balance state on coarse meshes. The more difficult issue of convergence towards such hydrostatic balance state from an arbitrary initial condition is not addressed in this paper.

In this paper, we propose a structured bisection method with adaptive randomized sampling for finding selected or all of the eigenvalues of certain real symmetric matrices A. For A with a low-rank property, we construct a hierarchically semiseparable (HSS) approximation and show how to quickly evaluate and update its inertia in the bisection method. Unlike some existing randomized HSS constructions, the methods here do not require the knowledge of the off-diagonal (numerical) ranks in advance. Moreover, for A with a weak rank property or slowly decaying off-diagonal singular values, we show an idea for aggressive low-rank inertia evaluation, which means that a compact HSS approximation can preserve the inertia for certain shifts. This is analytically justified for a special case, and numerically shown for more general ones. A generalized LDL factorization of the HSS approximation is then designed for the fast evaluation of the inertia. A significant advantage over standard LDL factorizations is that the HSS LDL factorization (and thus the inertia) of A − sI can be quickly updated with multiple shifts s in bisection. The factorization with each new shift can reuse about 60% of the work. As an important application, the structured eigensolver can be applied to symmetric Toeplitz matrices, and the cost to find one eigenvalue is nearly linear in the order of the matrix. The numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency and the accuracy of our methods, especially the benefit of low-rank inertia evaluations. The ideas and methods can be potentially adapted to other HSS computations where shifts are involved and to more problems without a significant low-rank property.