Spectral Approximations for Nonlinear Fractional Delay Diffusion Equations with Smooth and Nonsmooth Solutions

Abstract

A fully discrete scheme is proposed for the nonlinear fractional delay diffusion equations with smooth solutions, where the fractional derivative is described in Caputo sense with the order $\alpha$ ($0 \lt \alpha \lt 1$). The scheme is constructed by combining finite difference method in time and Legendre spectral approximation in space. Stability and convergence are proved rigorously. Moreover, a modified scheme is proposed for the equation with nonsmooth solutions by adding correction terms to the approximations of fractional derivative operator and nonlinear term. Numerical examples are carried out to support the theoretical analysis.