A Second-Order Convex Splitting Scheme for a Cahn-Hilliard Equation with Variable Interfacial Parameters

Abstract

In this paper, the MMC-TDGL equation, a stochastic Cahn-Hilliard equation with a variable interfacial parameter, is solved numerically by using a convex splitting scheme which is second-order in time for the non-stochastic part in combination with the Crank-Nicolson and the Adams-Bashforth methods. For the non-stochastic case, the unconditional energy stability is obtained in the sense that a modified energy is non-increasing. The scheme in the stochastic version is then obtained by adding the discretized stochastic term. Numerical experiments are carried out to verify the second-order convergence rate for the non-stochastic case, and to show the long-time stochastic evolutions using larger time steps.