On the Stability of Unconditionally Positive and Linear Invariants Preserving Time Integration Schemes

TL;DR

This paper develops a stability analysis framework for positivity-preserving time integration schemes, proving the unconditional stability of a specific family of modified Runge-Kutta methods for linear systems.

Contribution

It introduces a theorem based on center manifold theory for analyzing non-hyperbolic fixed points in positivity-preserving schemes, establishing their stability.

Findings

Proves unconditional stability of MPRK22(α) schemes for linear systems.

Provides a new stability analysis method for non-hyperbolic fixed points.

Numerical experiments confirm theoretical stability results.

Abstract

Higher-order time integration methods that unconditionally preserve the positivity and linear invariants of the underlying differential equation system cannot belong to the class of general linear methods. This poses a major challenge for the stability analysis of such methods since the new iterate depends nonlinearly on the current iterate. Moreover, for linear systems, the existence of linear invariants is always associated with zero eigenvalues, so that steady states of the continuous problem become non-hyperbolic fixed points of the numerical time integration scheme. Altogether, the stability analysis of such methods requires the investigation of non-hyperbolic fixed points for general nonlinear iterations. Based on the center manifold theory for maps we present a theorem for the analysis of the stability of non-hyperbolic fixed points of time integration schemes applied to problems whose steady states form a subspace. This theorem provides sufficient conditions for both the stability of the method and the local convergence of the iterates to the steady state of the underlying initial value problem. This theorem is then used to prove the unconditional stability of the MPRK22($\alpha$)-family of modified Patankar-Runge-Kutta schemes when applied to arbitrary positive and conservative linear systems of differential equations. The theoretical results are confirmed by numerical experiments.