Parsimonious convolution quadrature

Abstract

We present a method to rapidly approximate convolution quadrature (CQ) approximations, based on a piecewise polynomial interpolation of the Laplace domain operator, which we call the \emph{parsimonious} convolution quadrature method. For implicit Euler and second order backward difference formula based discretizations, we require O(N−−√logN) evaluations in the Laplace domain to approximate N time steps of the convolution quadrature method to satisfactory accuracy. The methodology proposed here differentiates from the well-understood fast and oblivious convolution quadrature \cite{SLL06}, since it is applicable to Laplace domain operator families that are only defined and polynomially bounded on a positive half space, which includes acoustic and electromagnetic wave scattering problems. The methods is applicable to linear and nonlinear integral equations. To elucidate the core idea, we give a complete and extensive analysis of the simplest case and derive worst-case estimates for the performance of parsimonious CQ based on the implicit Euler method. For sectorial Laplace transforms, we obtain methods that require O(log2N) Laplace domain evaluations on the complex right-half space. We present different implementation strategies, which only differ slightly from the classical realization of CQ methods. Numerical experiments demonstrate the use of the method with a time-dependent acoustic scattering problem, which was discretized by the boundary element method in space.