B-Theory of Runge-Kutta methods for stiff Volterra functional differential equations

Abstract

B -stability and B -convergence theories of Runge-Kutta methods for nonlinear stiff Volterra functional differential equations (VFDEs) are established which provide unified theoretical foundation for the study of Runge-Kutta methods when applied to nonlinear stiff initial value problems (IVPs) in ordinary differential equations (ODEs), delay differential equations (DDEs), integro-differential equations (IDEs) and VFDEs of other type which appear in practice.