An Energy Stable and Convergent Finite-Difference Scheme for the Modified Phase Field Crystal Equation

Abstract

We present an unconditionally energy stable finite difference scheme for the Modified Phase Field Crystal equation, a generalized damped wave equation for which the usual Phase Field Crystal equation is a special degenerate case. The method is based on a convex splitting of a discrete pseudoenergy and is semi-implicit. The equation at the implicit time level is nonlinear but represents the gradient of a strictly convex function and is thus uniquely solvable, regardless of time step-size. We present a local-in-time error estimate that ensures the pointwise convergence of the scheme.