A linear second order unconditionally maximum bound principle-preserving scheme for the Allen-Cahn equation with general mobility

Abstract

In this work, we investigate a linear second-order numerical method for the Allen-Cahn equation with general mobility. The proposed scheme is a combination of the two-step first- and second-order backward differentiation formulas for time approximation and the central finite difference for spatial discretization, two additional stabilizing terms are also included. The discrete maximum bound principle of the numerical scheme is rigorously proved under mild constraints on the adjacent time-step ratio and the two stabilization parameters. Furthermore, the error estimates in $H^1$-norm for the case of constant mobility and $L^{\infty }$-norm for the general mobility case, as well as the energy stability for both cases are obtained. Finally, we present extensive numerical experiments to validate the theoretical results, and develop an adaptive time-stepping strategy to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.