A linear Galerkin numerical method for a quasilinear subdiffusion equation

We couple the L1 discretization for the Caputo derivative in time with the spectral Galerkin method in space to devise a scheme that solves quasilinear subdiffusion equations. Both the diffusivity and the source are allowed to be nonlinear functions of the solution. We prove the stability and convergence of the method with spectral accuracy in space. The temporal order depends on the regularity of the solution in time. Furthermore, we support our results with numerical simulations that utilize parallelism for spatial discretization. Moreover, as a side result, we find exact asymptotic values of the error constants along with their remainders for discretizations of the Caputo derivative and fractional integrals. These constants are the smallest possible, which improves previously established results from the literature.(c) 2022 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.