Stability and Convergence Analyses of the FDM Based on Some L-Type Formulae for Solving the Subdiffusion Equation

Some well-known L-type formulae, i.e., L1, L1-2, and L1-2-3 formulae, are usually employed to approximate the Caputo fractional derivative of order α ∈ (0, 1). In this paper, we aim to elaborate on the stability and convergence analyses of some finite difference methods (FDMs) for solving the subdiffusion equation, i.e., a diffusion equation which exploits the Caputo time-fractional derivative of order $α$. In fact, the FDMs considered here are based on the usual central difference scheme for the spatial derivative, and the Caputo derivative is approximated by using methods such as the L1, L1-2, and L1-2-3 formulae. Thanks to a specific type of the discrete version of the Gronwall inequality, we show that the FDMs are unconditionally stable in the maximum norm and also discrete H¹ norm. Then, we prove that the finite difference method which uses the L1, L1-2, and L1-2-3 formulae has the global order of convergence $2−α$, $3−α$, and 3, respectively. Finally, some numerical tests confirm the theoretical results. A brief conclusion finishes the paper.