This example leads us to our first encounter with the concept of stability of finite difference schemes. In particular, we define the region of absolute stability of a numerical method for an IVP as the set of complex values of
Theorem 2.1 (The Root Condition). A necessary and sufficient condition for the stability of a linear multistep method (2.32) is that all the roots of the polynomial
We now discuss convergence issues. We say that a difference scheme has order of accuracy
where
We conclude this section by stating a convergence result that allows us to estimate the error between the exact solution of an initial value problem and the solution of a multistep scheme that approximates it. To this end, we consider the
By autonomous we mean that
We approximate this IVP using the multistep method (2.32). We recall:
Theorem 2.2 Assume that the solution
Suppose furthermore that the sequence
If the multistep method is stable and satisfies:
where C is a positive constant independent of