In this paper, we develop and analyze an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian discontinuous Galerkin (ALE-DG) method with a time-dependent approximation space for one dimensional conservation laws, which satisfies the geometric conservation law. For the semi-discrete ALE-DG method, when applied to nonlinear scalar conservation laws, a cell entropy inequality, L2 stability and error estimates are proven. More precisely, we prove the sub-optimal (k+1/2) convergence for monotone fluxes, and optimal (k+1) convergence for an upwind flux, when a piecewise P^k polynomial approximation space is used. For the fully-discrete ALE-DG method, the geometric conservation law and the local maximum principle are proven. Moreover, we state conditions for slope limiters, which ensure total variation stability of the method. Numerical examples show the capability of the method.

In this paper, we analyze the stability of the fourth order Runge-Kutta method for integrating semi-discrete approximations of time-dependent partial differential equations. Our study focuses on linear problems and covers general semi-bounded spatial discretizations. A counter example is given to show that the classical four-stage fourth order Runge-Kutta method can not preserve the one-step strong stability, even though the ordinary differential equation system is energy-decaying. But with an energy argument, we show that the strong stability property holds in two steps under an appropriate time step constraint. Based on this fact, the stability extends to general well-posed linear systems. As an application, we utilize the results to examine the stability of the fourth order Runge-Kutta approximations of several specific method of lines schemes for hyperbolic problems, including the spectral Galerkin method and the discontinuous Galerkin method.

Thetransmissioneigenvalueproblem,besidesitscriticalroleininversescattering problems, deserves special interest of its own due to the fact that the corresponding differen- tial operator is neither elliptic nor self-adjoint. In this paper, we provide a spectral analysis and propose a novel iterative algorithm for the computation of a few positive real eigen- values and the corresponding eigenfunctions of the transmission eigenvalue problem. Based on approximation using continuous finite elements, we first derive an associated symmetric quadratic eigenvalue problem (QEP) for the transmission eigenvalue problem to eliminate the nonphysical zero eigenvalues while preserve all nonzero ones. In addition, the derived QEP enables us to consider more refined discretization to overcome the limitation on the number of degrees of freedom. We then transform the QEP to a parameterized symmet- ric definite generalized eigenvalue problem (GEP) and develop a secant-type iteration for solving the resulting GEPs. Moreover, we carry out spectral analysis for various existence intervals of desired positive real eigenvalues, since a few lowest positive real transmission eigenvalues are of practical interest in the estimation and the reconstruction of the index of refraction. Numerical experiments show that the proposed method can find those desired smallest positive real transmission eigenvalues accurately, efficiently, and robustly.

The entropy solutions of the compressible Euler equations satisfy a minimum principle for the specific entropy. First order schemes such as Godunov-type and Lax-Friedrichs schemes and the second order kinetic schemes also satisfy a discrete minimum entropy principle. In this paper, we show an extension of the positivity-preserving high order schemes for the compressible Euler equations, to enforce the minimum entropy principle for high order finite volume and discontinuous Galerkin (DG) schemes.

A fourth-order finite difference method is proposed and studied for the primitive equations (PEs) of large-scale atmospheric and oceanic flow based on mean vorticity formulation. Since the vertical average of the horizontal velocity field is divergence-free, we can introduce mean vorticity and mean stream function which are connected by a 2-D Poisson equation. As a result, the PEs can be reformulated such that the prognostic equation for the horizontal velocity is replaced by evolutionary equa-tions for the mean vorticity field and the vertical derivative of the horizontal velocity. The mean vorticity equation is approximated by a compact difference scheme due to the difficulty of the mean vorticity boundary condition, while fourth-order long-stencil approximations are utilized to deal with transport type equations for computational convenience. The numerical values for the total velocity field (both horizontal and vertical) are statically determined by a discrete realization of a differential equation at each fixed horizontal point. The method is highly efficient and is capable of produc-ing highly resolved solutions at a reasonable computational cost. The full fourth-order accuracy is checked by an example of the reformulated PEs with force terms. Addi-tionally, numerical results of a large-scale oceanic circulation are presented.