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1 For the Beginning: The Finite Di.erence Method for the Poisson Equation


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1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

indices at the top) from now on for partial derivatives we use the following


Notation: For u : Ω ⊂ Rd → R we set


for i = 1, . . . , d ,

∂i u :=



∂ij u :=


for i, j = 1, · · · , d ,

∂xi ∂xj

∆u := (∂11 + . . . + ∂dd ) u .

The expression ∆u is called the Laplace operator. By means of this, (1.1)

can be written in abbreviated form as

−∆u = f

in Ω .


We could also deﬁne the Laplace operator by

∆u = ∇ · (∇u) ,


where ∇u = (∂1 u, . . . , ∂d u) denotes the gradient of a function u, and

∇ · v = ∂1 v1 + · · · + ∂d vd the divergence of a vector ﬁeld v. Therefore,

an alternative notation exists, which will not be used in the following:

∆u = ∇2 u. The incorporation of the minus sign in the left-hand side of

(1.3), which looks strange at ﬁrst glance, is related to the monotonicity and

deﬁniteness properties of −∆ (see Sections 1.4 and 2.1, respectively).

The notion of a solution for (1.1), (1.2) still has to speciﬁed more precisely. Considering the equations in a pointwise sense, which will be pursued

in this chapter, the functions in (1.1), (1.2) have to exist, and the equations

have to be satisﬁed pointwise. Since (1.1) is an equation on an open set Ω,

there are no implications for the behaviour of u up to the boundary ∂Ω. To

have a real requirement due to the boundary condition, u has to be at least

continuous up to the boundary, that is, on Ω. These requirements can be

formulated in a compact way by means of corresponding function spaces.

The function spaces are introduced more precisely in Appendix A.5. Some

examples are




C (Ω) :=

u : Ω → R u continuous in Ω ,

u : Ω → R u ∈ C(Ω) , ∂i u exists in Ω ,

∂i u ∈ C(Ω) for all i = 1, . . . , d


The spaces C k (Ω) for k ∈ N, C(Ω), and C k (Ω), as well as C(∂Ω), are

deﬁned analogously. In general, the requirements related to the (continuous) existence of derivatives are called, a little bit vaguely, smoothness


In the following, in view of the ﬁnite diﬀerence method, f and g will also

be assumed continuous in Ω and ∂Ω, respectively.

1.2. The Finite Diﬀerence Method


Deﬁnition 1.1 Assume f ∈ C(Ω) and g ∈ C(∂Ω). A function u is called

a (classical) solution of (1.1), (1.2) if u ∈ C 2 (Ω) ∩ C(Ω), (1.1) holds for all

x ∈ Ω, and (1.2) holds for all x ∈ ∂Ω.

1.2 The Finite Diﬀerence Method

The ﬁnite diﬀerence method is based on the following approach: We are

looking for an approximation to the solution of a boundary value problem

at a ﬁnite number of points in Ω (the grid points). For this reason we

substitute the derivatives in (1.1) by diﬀerence quotients, which involve

only function values at grid points in Ω and require (1.2) only at grid

points. By this we obtain algebraic equations for the approximating values

at grid points. In general, such a procedure is called the discretization of the

boundary value problem. Since the boundary value problem is linear, the

system of equations for the approximate values is also linear. In general, for

other (diﬀerential equation) problems and other discretization approaches

we also speak of the discrete problem as an approximation of the continuous

problem. The aim of further investigations will be to estimate the resulting

error and thus to judge the quality of the approximative solution.

Generation of Grid Points

In the following, for the beginning, we will restrict our attention to problems

in two space dimensions (d = 2). For simpliﬁcation we consider the case

of a constant step size (or mesh width) h > 0 in both space directions.

The quantity h here is the discretization parameter, which in particular

determines the dimension of the discrete problem.



◦ ◦ ◦

◦ • •

◦ • •

◦ • •

◦ • •

◦ ◦ ◦

• : Ωh

◦ : ∂Ωh

✷ : far from boundary

✸ : close to boundary

Figure 1.1. Grid points in a square domain.

For the time being, let Ω be a rectangle, which represents the simplest

case for the ﬁnite diﬀerence method (see Figure 1.1). By translation of the

coordinate system the situation can be reduced to Ω = (0, a) × (0, b) with

a, b > 0 . We assume that the lengths a, b, and h are such that

a = lh,

b = mh

for certain l, m ∈ N.



1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

We deﬁne


(ih, jh) i = 1, . . . , l − 1 , j = 1, . . . , m − 1

(x, y) ∈ Ω x = ih , y = jh with i, j ∈ Z




as a set of grid points in Ω in which an approximation of the diﬀerential

equation has to be satisﬁed. In the same way,

∂Ωh :=


(ih, jh) i ∈ {0, l} , j ∈ {0, . . . , m} or i ∈ {0, . . . , l} , j ∈ {0, m}

(x, y) ∈ ∂Ω x = ih , y = jh with i, j ∈ Z

deﬁnes the grid points on ∂Ω in which an approximation of the boundary

condition has to be satisﬁed. The union of grid points will be denoted by

Ωh := Ωh ∪ ∂Ωh .

Setup of the System of Equations

Lemma 1.2 Let Ω := (x − h, x + h) for x ∈ R, h > 0. Then there exists

a quantity R, depending on u and h, the absolute value of which can be

bounded independently of h and such that

(1) for u ∈ C 2 (Ω):

u (x) =

u(x + h) − u(x)

+ hR



|R| ≤






|R| ≤





(2) for u ∈ C 2 (Ω):

u (x) =

u(x) − u(x − h)

+ hR


(3) for u ∈ C 3 (Ω):

u (x) =

u(x + h) − u(x − h)

+ h2 R



|R| ≤





(4) for u ∈ C 4 (Ω):

u (x) =

u(x + h) − 2u(x) + u(x − h)

1 (4)


+ h2 R and |R| ≤





Here the maximum norm · ∞ (see Appendix A.5) has to be taken over

the interval of the involved points (x, x + h), (x − h, x), or (x − h, x + h).

Proof: The proof follows immediately by Taylor expansion. As an example

we consider statement 3: From

u(x ± h) = u(x) ± hu (x) +



u (x) ± u (x ± ξ± ) for certain ξ± ∈ (0, h)



the assertion follows by linear combination.

1.2. Derivation and Properties


Notation: The quotient in statement 1 is called the forward diﬀerence

quotient, and it is denoted by ∂ + u(x). The quotient in statement 2 is

called the backward diﬀerence quotient (∂ − u(x)), and the one in statement

3 the symmetric diﬀerence quotient (∂ 0 u(x)). The quotient appearing in

statement 4 can be written as ∂ − ∂ + u(x) by means of the above notation.

In order to use statement 4 in every space direction for the approximation

of ∂11 u and ∂22 u in a grid point (ih, jh), in addition to the conditions of

Deﬁnition 1.1, the further smoothness properties ∂ (3,0) u, ∂ (4,0) u ∈ C(Ω)

and analogously for the second coordinate are necessary. Here we use, e.g.,

the notation ∂ (3,0) u := ∂ 3 u/∂x31 (see (2.16)).

Using these approximations for the boundary value problem (1.1), (1.2),

at each grid point (ih, jh) ∈ Ωh we get

u ((i + 1)h, jh) − 2u(ih, jh) + u ((i − 1)h, jh)


u (ih, (j + 1)h) − 2u(ih, jh) + u (ih, (j − 1)h)






f (ih, jh) + R(ih, jh)h2 .

Here R is as described in statement 4 of Lemma 1.2, a function depending

on the solution u and on the step size h, but the absolute value of which can

be bounded independently of h. In cases where we have less smoothness of

the solution u, we can nevertheless formulate the approximation (1.6) for

−∆u, but the size of the error in the equation is unclear at the moment.

For the grid points (ih, jh) ∈ ∂Ωh no approximation of the boundary

condition is necessary:

u(ih, jh) = g(ih, jh) .

If we neglect the term Rh2 in (1.6), we get a system of linear equations

for the approximating values uij for u(x, y) at points (x, y) = (ih, jh) ∈ Ωh .

They have the form


− ui,j−1 − ui−1,j + 4uij − ui+1,j − ui,j+1 = fij



if i ∈ {0, l}, j = 0, . . . , m or j ∈ {0, m}, i = 0, . . . , l .

uij = gij



Here we used the abbreviations

fij := f (ih, jh),

gij := g(ih, jh) .


Therefore, for each unknown grid value uij we get an equation. The grid

points (ih, jh) and the approximating values uij located at these have a

natural two-dimensional indexing.

In equation (1.7) for a grid point (i, j) only the neighbours at the four

cardinal points of the compass appear, as it is displayed in Figure 1.2. This


1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

interconnection is also called the ﬁve-point stencil of the diﬀerence method

and the method the ﬁve-point stencil discretization.








Figure 1.2. Five-point stencil.

At the interior grid points (x, y) = (ih, jh) ∈ Ωh , two cases can be


(1) (i, j) has a position such that its all neighbouring grid points lie in

Ωh (far from the boundary).

(2) (i, j) has a position such that at least one neighbouring grid point

(r, s) lies on ∂Ωh (close to the boundary). Then in equation (1.7) the

value urs is known due to (1.8) (urs = grs ), and (1.7) can be modiﬁed

in the following way:

Remove the values urs with (rh, sh) ∈ ∂Ωh in the equations for (i, j)

close to the boundary and add the value grs /h2 to the right-hand

side of (1.7). The set of equations that arises by this elimination of

boundary unknowns by means of Dirichlet boundary conditions we

call (1.7)∗ ; it is equivalent to (1.7), (1.8).

Instead of considering the values uij , i = 1, . . . , l − 1, j = 1, . . . , m − 1,

one also speaks of the grid function uh : Ωh → R, where uh (ih, jh) = uij

for i = 1, . . . , l − 1, j = 1, . . . , m − 1. Grid functions on ∂Ωh or on Ωh are

deﬁned analogously. Thus we can formulate the ﬁnite diﬀerence method

in the following way: Find a grid function uh on Ωh such that equations

(1.7), (1.8) hold, or, equivalently ﬁnd a grid function uh on Ωh such that

equations (1.7)∗ hold.

Structure of the System of Equations

After choosing an ordering of the uij for i = 0, . . . , l, j = 0, . . . , m, the

system of equations (1.7)∗ takes the following form:

Ah uh = q h


with Ah ∈ RM1 ,M1 and uh , q h ∈ RM1 , where M1 = (l − 1)(m − 1).

This means that nearly identical notations for the grid function and its

representing vector are chosen for a ﬁxed numbering of the grid points.

The only diﬀerence is that the representing vector is printed in bold. The

ordering of the grid points may be arbitrary, with the restriction that the

1.2. Derivation and Properties


points in Ωh are enumerated by the ﬁrst M1 indices, and the points in ∂Ωh

are labelled with the subsequent M2 = 2(l + m) indices. The structure of

Ah is not inﬂuenced by this restriction.

Because of the described elimination process, the right-hand side q h has

the following form:

q h = −Aˆh g + f ,


where g ∈ RM2 and f ∈ RM1 are the vectors representing the grid functions

f h : Ωh → R

and gh : ∂Ωh → R

according to the chosen numbering with the values deﬁned in (1.9). The

matrix Aˆh ∈ RM1 ,M2 has the following form:


 − 2

if the node i is close to the boundary


and j is a neighbour in the ﬁve-point stencil,

(Aˆh )ij =


otherwise .


For any ordering, only the diagonal element and at most four further entries

in a row of Ah , deﬁned by (1.7), are diﬀerent from 0; that is, the matrix is

sparse in a strict sense, as is assumed in Chapter 5.

An obvious ordering is the rowwise numbering of Ωh according to the

following scheme:





··· ···













··· ···

.. ..







··· ···







··· ···







Another name of the above scheme is lexicographic ordering. (However,

this name is better suited to the columnwise numbering.)

In this case the matrix Ah has the following form of an (m − 1) × (m − 1)

block tridiagonal matrix:

T −I

 −I T −I








−2 


Ah = h 








−I T −I 

−I T


1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

with the unit matrix I ∈ Rl−1,l−1 and

4 −1

 −1 4 −1







T =









 ∈ Rl−1,l−1 .



4 −1 

−1 4


We return to the consideration of an arbitrary numbering. In the following we collect several properties of the matrix Ah ∈ RM1 ,M1 and the

extended matrix

A˜h := Ah Aˆh ∈ RM1 ,M ,

where M := M1 + M2 . The matrix A˜h takes into account all the grid

points in Ωh . It has no relevance with the resolution of (1.10), but with the

stability of the discretization, which will be investigated in Section 1.4.

(Ah )rr > 0 for all r = 1, . . . , M1 ,

(A˜h )rs ≤ 0 for all r = 1, . . . , M1 , s = 1, . . . , M such that r = s,


 ≥ 0 for all r = 1, . . . , M1 ,

(Ah )rs


 > 0 if r belongs to a grid point close to


the boundary,


(A˜h )rs = 0 for all r = 1, . . . , M1 ,


Ah is irreducible ,

Ah is regular.

Therefore, the matrix Ah is weakly row diagonally dominant (see Appendix A.3 for deﬁnitions from linear algebra). The irreducibility follows

from the fact that two arbitrary grid points may be connected by a path

consisting of corresponding neighbours in the ﬁve-point stencil. The regularity follows from the irreducible diagonal dominance. From this we

can conclude that (1.10) can be solved by Gaussian elimination without

pivot search. In particular, if the matrix has a band structure, this will be

preserved. This fact will be explained in more detail in Section 2.5.

The matrix Ah has the following further properties:

• Ah is symmetric,

• Ah is positive deﬁnite.

It is suﬃcient to verify these properties for a ﬁxed ordering, for example the

rowwise one, since by a change of the ordering matrix, Ah is transformed

to P Ah P T with some regular matrix P, by which neither symmetry nor

1.2. Derivation and Properties


positive deﬁniteness is destroyed. Nevertheless, the second assertion is not

obvious. One way to verify it is to compute eigenvalues and eigenvectors

explicitly, but we refer to Chapter 2, where the assertion follows naturally

from Lemma 2.13 and (2.36). The eigenvalues and eigenvectors are speciﬁed

in (5.24) for the special case l = m = n and also in (7.60). Therefore, (1.10)

can be resolved by Cholesky’s method, taking into account the bandedness.

Quality of the Approximation by the Finite Diﬀerence Method

We now address the following question: To what accuracy does the grid

function uh corresponding to the solution uh of (1.10) approximate the

solution u of (1.1), (1.2)?

To this end we consider the grid function U : Ωh → R, which is deﬁned


U (ih, jh) := u(ih, jh).


To measure the size of U − uh , we need a norm (see Appendix A.4 and also

A.5 for the subsequently used deﬁnitions). Examples are the maximum


uh − U





|(uh − U ) (ih, jh)|


and the discrete L2 -norm


l−1 m−1

uh − U



((uh − U )(ih, jh))

:= h



i=1 j=1

Both norms can be conceived as the application of the continuous norms

· ∞ of the function space L∞ (Ω) or · 0 of the function space L2 (Ω)

to piecewise constant prolongations of the grid functions (with a special

treatment of the area close to the boundary). Obviously, we have

vh 0,h ≤ ab vh ∞

for a grid function vh , but the reverse estimate does not hold uniformly in

h, so that · ∞ is a stronger norm. In general, we are looking for a norm

· h in the space of grid functions in which the method converges in the


uh − U



for h → 0

or even has an order of convergence p > 0, by which we mean the existence

of a constant C > 0 independent of h such that

uh − U


≤ C hp .

Due to the construction of the method, for a solution u ∈ C 4 (Ω) we have

Ah U = q h + h2 R ,


1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

where U and R ∈ RM1 are the representations of the grid functions U and

R according to (1.6) in the selected ordering. Therefore, we have:

Ah (uh − U ) = −h2 R

and thus

|Ah (uh − U )|∞ = h2 |R|∞ = Ch2

with a constant C(= |R|∞ ) > 0 independent of h.

From Lemma 1.2, 4. we conclude that




∂ (4,0) u

+ ∂ (0,4) u


That is, for a solution u ∈ C 4 (Ω) the method is consistent with the boundary value problem with an order of consistency 2. More generally, the notion

takes the following form:

Deﬁnition 1.3 Let (1.10) be the system of equations that corresponds to

a (ﬁnite diﬀerence) approximation on the grid points Ωh with a discretization parameter h. Let U be the representation of the grid function that

corresponds to the solution u of the boundary value problem according to

(1.16). Furthermore, let · h be a norm in the space of grid functions

on Ωh , and let | · |h be the corresponding vector norm in the space RM1 h ,

where M1 h is the number of grid points in Ωh . The approximation is called

consistent with respect to · h if

|Ah U − q h |h → 0

for h → 0 .

The approximation has the order of consistency p > 0 if

|Ah U − q h |h ≤ Chp

with a constant C > 0 independent of h.

Thus the consistency or truncation error Ah U − qh measures the quality

of how the exact solution satisﬁes the approximating equations. As we have

seen, in general it can be determined easily by Taylor expansion, but at

the expense of unnaturally high smoothness assumptions. But one has to

be careful in expecting the error |uh − U |h to behave like the consistency

error. We have

uh − U


= A−1

h Ah (uh − U )


≤ A−1



Ah (uh − U )




where the matrix norm · h has to be chosen to be compatible with the

vector norm |·|h . The error behaves like the consistency error asymptotically

in h if A−1

can be bounded independently of h; that is if the method



is stable in the following sense:

Deﬁnition 1.4 In the situation of Deﬁnition 1.3, the approximation is

called stable with respect to · h if there exists a constant C > 0



independent of h such that





From the above deﬁnition we can obviously conclude, with (1.19), the

following result:

Theorem 1.5 A consistent and stable method is convergent, and the order

of convergence is at least equal to the order of consistency.

Therefore, speciﬁcally for the ﬁve-point stencil discretization of (1.1),

(1.2) on a rectangle, stability with respect to · ∞ is desirable. In fact, it

follows from the structure of Ah : Namely, we have



1 2

(a + b2 ) .



This follows from more general considerations in Section 1.4 (Theorem 1.14). Putting the results together we have the following theorem:

Theorem 1.6 Let the solution u of (1.1), (1.2) on a rectangle Ω be

in C 4 (Ω). Then the ﬁve-point stencil discretization has an order of

convergence 2 with respect to · ∞ , more precisely,

|uh − U |∞ ≤


(a2 + b2 )


∂ (4,0) u

+ ∂ (0,4) u

h2 .


1.1 Complete the proof of Lemma 1.2 and also investigate the error of

the respective diﬀerence quotients, assuming only u ∈ C 2 [x − h, x + h].

1.2 Generalize the discussion concerning the ﬁve-point stencil discretization (including the order of convergence) of (1.1), (1.2) on a rectangle for

h1 > 0 in the x1 direction and h2 > 0 in the x2 direction.

1.3 Show that an irreducible weakly row diagonally dominant matrix

cannot have vanishing diagonal elements.

1.3 Generalizations and Limitations of the Finite

Diﬀerence Method

We continue to consider the boundary value problem (1.1), (1.2) on a rectangle Ω. The ﬁve-point stencil discretization developed may be interpreted

as a mapping −∆h from functions on Ωh into grid functions on Ωh , which


1. Finite Diﬀerence Method for the Poisson Equation

is deﬁned by


−∆h vh (x1 , x2 ) :=

cij vh (x1 + ih, x2 + jh) ,



where c0,0 = 4/h2 , c0,1 = c1,0 = c0,−1 = c−1,0 = −1/h2 , and cij = 0 for

all other (i, j). For the description of such a diﬀerence stencil as deﬁned

in (1.21) the points of the compass (in two space dimensions) may also

be involved. In the ﬁve-point stencil only the main points of the compass


The question of whether the weights cij can be chosen diﬀerently such

that we gain an approximation of −∆u with higher order in h has to be

answered negatively (see Exercise 1.7). In this respect the ﬁve-point stencil

is optimal. This does not exclude that other diﬀerence stencils with more

entries, but of the same order of convergence, might be worthwhile to consider. An example, which will be derived in Exercise 3.11 by means of the

ﬁnite element method, has the following form:




c0,0 = 2 , cij = − 2 for all other i, j ∈ {−1, 0, 1} .



This nine-point stencil can be interpreted as a linear combination of the

ﬁve-point stencil and

system rotated by

√ a ﬁve-point stencil for 1a coordinate














linear combina4



tion. Using a general nine-point stencil a method with order of consistency

greater than 2 can be constructed only if the right-hand side f at the point

(x1 , x2 ) is approximated not by the evaluation f (x1 , x2 ), but by applying

a more general stencil. The mehrstellen method (“Mehrstellenverfahren”)

deﬁned by Collatz is such an example (see, for example, [15, p. 66]).

Methods of higher order can be achieved by larger stencils, meaning

that the summation indices in (1.21) have to be replaced by k and −k,

respectively, for k ∈ N. But already for k = 2 such diﬀerence stencils

cannot be used for grid points close to the boundary, so that there one has

to return to approximations of lower order.

If we consider the ﬁve-point stencil to be a suitable discretization for

the Poisson equation, the high smoothness assumption for the solution in

Theorem 1.6 should be noted. This requirement cannot be ignored, since

in general it does not hold true. On the one hand, for a smoothly bounded

domain (see Appendix A.5 for a deﬁnition of a domain with C l -boundary)

the smoothness of the solution is determined only by the smoothness of the

data f and g (see for example [13, Theorem 6.19]), but on the other hand,

corners in the domain reduce this smoothness the more, the more reentrant

the corners are. Let us consider the following examples:

For the boundary value problem (1.1), (1.2) on a rectangle (0, a) × (0, b)

we choose f = 1 and g = 0; this means arbitrarily smooth functions.

Nevertheless, for the solution u, the statement u ∈ C 2 (Ω) cannot hold,

because otherwise, −∆u(0, 0) = 1 would be true, but on the other hand,

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