Numerical modeling of wave equation by a truncated high-order finite-difference method

Finite-difference methods with high-order accuracy have been utilized to improve the precision of numerical solution for partial differential equations. However, the computation cost generally increases linearly with increased order of accuracy. Upon examination of the finite-difference formulas for the first-order and second-order derivatives, and the staggered finite-difference formulas for the first-order derivative, we examine the variation of finite-difference coefficients with accuracy order and note that there exist some very small coefficients. With the order increasing, the number of these small coefficients increases, however, the values decrease sharply. An error analysis demonstrates that omitting these small coefficients not only maintain approximately the same level of accuracy of finite difference but also reduce computational cost significantly. Moreover, it is easier to truncate for the high-order finite-difference formulas than for the pseudospectral formulas. Thus this study proposes a truncated high-order finite-difference method, and then demonstrates the efficiency and applicability of the method with some numerical examples.