A frequency-dependent $p$-adaptive technique for spectral methods

When using spectral methods, a question arises as how to determine the expansion order, especially for time-dependent problems in which emerging oscillations may require adjusting the expansion order. In this paper, we propose a frequency-dependent $p$-adaptive technique that adaptively adjusts the expansion order based on a frequency indicator. Using this $p$-adaptive technique, combined with recently proposed scaling and moving techniques, we are able to devise an adaptive spectral method in unbounded domains that can capture and handle diffusion, advection, and oscillations. As an application, we use this adaptive spectral method to numerically solve the Schrodinger equation in the whole domain and successfully capture the solution's oscillatory behavior at infinity.