Second order fully semi-Lagrangian discretizations of advection-diffusion-reaction systems

Abstract: We propose a second order, fully semi-Lagrangian method for the numerical solution of systems of advection-diffusion-reaction equations, which employs a semi-Lagrangian approach to approximate in time both the advective and the diffusive terms. Standard interpolation procedures are used for the space discretization on structured and unstructured meshes. The proposed method allows for large time steps, while avoiding the solution of large linear systems, which would be required by an implicit time discretization technique. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and its superior efficiency with respect to more conventional explicit and implicit time discretizations