A computationally efficient strategy for time-fractional diffusion-reaction equations

Abstract An efficient strategy for the numerical solution of time-fractional diffusion-reaction problems is devised. A standard finite difference discretization of the space derivative is initially applied which results in a linear stiff term. Then a rectangular product-integration (PI) rule is implemented in an implicit-explicit (IMEX) framework in order to implicitly treat this linear stiff term and handle in an explicit way the non-linear, and usually non-stiff, term. The kernel compression scheme (KCS) is successively adopted to reduce the overload of computation and storage need for the persistent memory term. To reduce the computational effort the semidiscretized problem is described in a matrix-form, so as to require the solution of Sylvester equations only with small matrices. Theoretical results on the accuracy, together with strategies for the optimal selection of the main parameters of the whole method, are derived and verified by means of numerical experiments carried out in two-dimensional domains. The computational advantages with respect to other approaches are also shown and some applications to the detection of pattern formation are illustrated at the end of the paper.