Hermite Spectral Methods with a Time-Dependent Scaling for Parabolic Equations in Unbounded Domains

Hermite spectral methods are investigated for linear diffusion equations and the viscous Burgers’ equation in unbounded domains. When the solution domain is unbounded, the diffusion operator no longer has a compact resolvent, which makes the Hermite spectral methods unstable. To overcome this difficulty, a time-dependent scaling factor is employed in the Hermite expansions, which yields a positive bilinear form. As a consequence, stability and spectral convergence can be established for this approach. The present method plays a similar stability role to the similarity transformation technique proposed by Funaro and Kavian [Math. Comput., 57 (1991), pp. 597-619]. However, since co-ordinate transformations are not required, the present approach is more efficient and is easier to implement. In fact, with the time-dependent scaling the resulting discretization system is of the same form as that associated with the classical (straightforward but unstable) Hermite spectral method. Numerical experiments are carried out to support the theoretical stability and convergence results.