Numerical scheme for solving the nonuniformly forced cubic and quintic Swift–Hohenberg equations strictly respecting the Lyapunov functional

Abstract

Computational modeling of pattern formation in nonequilibrium systems is a fundamental tool for studying complex phenomena in biology, chemistry, materials and engineering sciences. The pursuit for theoretical descriptions of some among those physical problems led to the Swift–Hohenberg equation (SH3) which describes pattern selection in the vicinity of instabilities. A finite differences scheme, known as Stabilizing Correction (Christov and Pontes, 2002), developed to integrate the cubic Swift–Hohenberg equation in two dimensions, is reviewed and extended in the present paper. The original scheme features Generalized Dirichlet boundary conditions (GDBC), forcings with a spatial ramp of the control parameter, strict implementation of the associated Lyapunov functional, and second-order representation of all derivatives. We now extend these results by including periodic boundary conditions (PBC), forcings with Gaussian distributions of the control parameter and the quintic Swift–Hohenberg (SH35) model. The present scheme also features a strict implementation of the functional for all test cases. A code verification was accomplished, showing unconditional stability, along with second-order accuracy in both time and space. Test cases confirmed the monotonic decay of the Lyapunov functional and all numerical experiments exhibit the main physical features: highly nonlinear behavior, wavelength filter and competition between bulk and boundary effects.