A fourth order Runge-Kutta type of exponential time differencing and triangular spectral element method for two dimensional nonlinear Maxwell's equations

In this paper, we study a numerical scheme to solve the nonlinear Maxwell's equations. The discrete scheme is based on the triangular spectral element method (TSEM) in space and the exponential time differencing fourth-order Runge-Kutta (ETDRK4) method in time. TSEM has the advantages of spectral accuracy and geometric flexibility. The ETD method involves exact integration of the linear part of the governing equation followed by an approximation of an integral involving the nonlinear terms. The RK4 scheme is introduced for the time integration of the nonlinear terms. The stability region of the ETDRK4 method is depicted. Moreover, the contour integral in the complex plan is utilized and improved to compute the matrix function required by the implementation of ETDRK4. The numerical results demonstrate that our proposed method is of exponential convergence with the order of basis function in space and fourth order accuracy in time.