Elimination of spurious eigenvalues in the Chebyshev tau spectral method

Abstract

Spectral methods have been used to great advantage in hydrodynamic stability calculations; the concepts are described in Orszag's seminal application of the Chebyshev tau method to the Orr-Sommerfeld equation for plane Poiseuille flow in 1971. Orszag discusses both the Chebyshev Galerkin and the Chebyshev tau methods, but presents results for the tau method, which is easier to implement than the Galerkin method. The tau method has the disadvantage that two unstable eigenvalues are produced that are artifacts of the discretization. An extremely simple modification to the Chebyshev tau method is presented which eliminates the spurious eigenvalues. First a simplified model of the Orr-Sommerfeld equation discussed by Gottlieb and Orszag was studied. Then the Chebyshev tau method is considered, which has two spurious eigenvalues, and then a modification which eliminates them is described. Finally, results for the Orr-Sommerfeld equation are considered where the modified tau method also eliminates the spurious eigenvalues. The simplicity of the modification makes it a convenient alternative to other approaches to the problem.