Fast implicit update schemes for Cahn–Hilliard-type gradient flow in the context of Fourier-spectral methods

This work discusses a way of allowing fast implicit update schemes for the temporal discretization of phase-field models for gradient flow problems that employ Fourier-spectral methods for their spatial discretization. Through the repeated application of the Sherman–Morrison formula we provide a rule for approximations of the inverted tangent matrix of the corresponding Newton–Raphson method with a selectable order. Since the representation of this inversion is exact for a sufficiently high approximation order, the proposed scheme is shown to provide a fixed-point-type iterative solver for gradient flow problems that require the solution of linear systems in the context of an implicit time-integration. While the proposed scheme is applicable to general gradient flow phase-field models, we discuss the scheme in the context of the Cahn–Hilliard equation, the Swift–Hohenberg equation, and the phase-field crystal equation for which we demonstrate the performance of the proposed method in comparison with classical solvers.