Pointwise-in-time a posteriori error control for higher-order discretizations of time-fractional parabolic equations

Abstract: Time-fractional parabolic equations with a Caputo time derivative are considered. For such equations, we explore and further develop the new methodology of the a-posteriori error estimation and adaptive time stepping proposed in [7]. We improve the earlier time stepping algorithm based on this theory, and specifically address its stable and efficient implementation in the context of high-order methods. The considered methods include an L1-2 method and continuous collocation methods of arbitrary order, for which adaptive temporal meshes are shown to yield optimal convergence rates in the presence of solution singularities.