Numerical analysis of the diffusive-viscous wave equation

Abstract The diffusive-viscous wave equation arises in a variety of applications in geophysics, and it plays an important role in seismic exploration. In this paper, semi-discrete and fully discrete numerical methods are introduced to solve a general initial-boundary value problem of the diffusive-viscous wave equation. The spatial discretization is carried out through the finite element method, whereas the time derivatives are approximated by finite differences. Optimal order error estimates are derived for the numerical methods. Numerical results on a test problem are reported to illustrate the numerical convergence orders.