A Third-Order p-Laplacian Boundary Value Problem Solved by an SL(3, ℝ) Lie-Group Shooting Method

The boundary layer problem for power-law fluid can be recast to a third-order p-Laplacian boundary value problem (BVP). In this paper, we transform the third-order p-Laplacian into a new system which exhibits a Lie-symmetry SL(3,R). Then, the closure property of the Lie-group is used to derive a linear transformation between the boundary values at two ends of a spatial interval. Hence, we can iteratively solve the missing left boundary conditions, which are determined by matching the right boundary conditions through a finer tuning of r ∈ [0, 1].Thepresent SL(3,R)Lie-group shootingmethod is easily implemented and is efficient to tackle themultiple solutions of the third-orderp-Laplacian.When themissing left boundary values can be determined accurately, we can apply the fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) method to obtain a quite accurate numerical solution of the p-Laplacian.