Choosing a stepsize for Taylor series methods for solving ODE'S

Abstract

Problem-dependent upper and lower bounds are given for the stepsize taken by long Taylor series methods for solving initial value problems in ordinary differential equations. Taylor series methods recursively generate the terms of the Taylor series and estimate the radius of convergence as well as the order and location of the primary singularities. A stepsize must then be chosen which is as large as possible to minimize the required number of steps, while remaining small enough to maintain the truncation error less than some tolerance. One could use any of four different measures of trunction error in an attempt to control the global error : i) absolute truncation error per step, ii) absolute trunction error per unit step, iii) relative truncation error per step, and iv) relative truncation error per unit step. For each of these measures, we give bounds for error and for the stepsize which yields a prescribed error. The bounds depend on the series length, radius of convergence, order, and location of the primary singularities. The bounds are shown to be optimal for functions with only one singularity of any order on the circle of convergence.