High-order solvers for space-fractional differential equations with Riesz derivative

Abstract

This paper proposes the computational approach for fractional-in-space reaction-diffusion equation, which is obtained by replacing the space second-order derivative in classical reaction-diffusion equation with the Riesz fractional derivative of order α in (0, 2]. The proposed numerical scheme for space fractional reaction-diffusion equations is based on the finite difference and Fourier spectral approximation methods. The paper utilizes a range of higher-order time stepping solvers which exhibit third-order accuracy in the time domain and spectral accuracy in the spatial domain to solve some fractional-in-space reaction-diffusion equations. The numerical experiment shows that the third-order ETD3RK scheme outshines its third-order counterparts, taking into account the computational time and accuracy. Applicability of the proposed methods is further tested with a higher dimensional system. Numerical simulation results show that pattern formation process in the classical sense is the same as in fractional scenarios.