Simplified CSP analysis of a stiff stochastic ODE system

Abstract

We develop a simplified computational singular perturbation (CSP) analysis of a stochastic dynamical system. We focus on the case of parametric uncertainty, and rely on polynomial chaos (PC) representations to quantify its impact. We restrict our attention to a system that exhibits distinct timescales, and that tends to a deterministic steady state irrespective of the random inputs. A detailed analysis of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the stochastic system Jacobian is conducted, which provides a relationship between the PC representation of the stochastic Jacobian and the Jacobian of the Galerkin form of the stochastic system. The analysis is then used to guide the application of a simplified CSP formalism that is based on relating the slow and fast manifolds of the uncertain system to those of a nominal deterministic system. Two approaches are specifically developed with the resulting simplified CSP framework. The first uses the stochastic eigenvectors of the uncertain system as CSP vectors, whereas the second uses the eigenvectors of the nominal system as CSP vectors. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the results of the stochastic eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis, and illustrate the effectiveness of the simplified CSP algorithms in addressing the stiffness of the system dynamics.