New Resolution Strategies for Multi-scale Reaction Waves: Optimal Time Operator Splitting and Space Adaptive Multiresolution

Abstract

We tackle the numerical simulation of reaction-diffusion equations modeling multi-scale reac- tion waves. This type of problems induces peculiar difficulties and potentially large stiffness which stem from the broad spectrum of temporal scales in the nonlinear chemical source term as well as from the presence of large spatial gradients in the reaction fronts, spatially very lo- calized. In this paper, we introduce a new resolution strategy based on time operator splitting and space adaptive multiresolution in the context of very localized and stiff reaction fronts. Based on recent theoretical studies of numerical analysis, such a strategy leads to a splitting time step which is not restricted neither by the fastest scales in the source term nor by restric- tive diffusive step stability limits, but only by the physics of the phenomenon. We thus aim at solving accurately complete models including all time and space scales of the phenomenon, considering large simulation domains with conventional computing resources. The efficiency is evaluated through the numerical simulation of configurations which were so far out of reach of standard methods in the field of nonlinear chemical dynamics for 2D spiral waves and 3D scroll waves as an illustration. Future extensions of the proposed strategy are finally discussed.