Splitting methods for the nonlocal Fowler equation

Abstract

We consider a nonlocal scalar conservation law proposed by Andrew C. Fowler to describe the dynamics of dunes, and we develop a numerical procedure based on splitting methods to approximate its solutions. We begin by proving the convergence of the well-known Lie formula, which is an approximation of the exact solution of order one in time. We next use the split-step Fourier method to approximate the continuous problem using the fast Fourier transform and the finite difference method. Our numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results.