A non-standard symmetry-preserving method to compute bounded solutions of a generalized Newell–Whitehead–Segel equation

In this work, we propose a finite-difference scheme to approximate the solutions of a generalization of the classical, one-dimensional, Newell–Whitehead–Segel equation from fluid mechanics, which is an equation for which the existence of bounded solutions is a well-known fact. The numerical method preserves the skew-symmetry of the problem of interest, and it is a non-standard technique which consistently approximates the solutions of the equation under investigation, with a consistency of the first order in time and of the second order in space. We prove that, under relatively flexible conditions on the computational parameters of the method, our technique yields bounded numerical approximations for every set of bounded initial estimates. Some simulations are provided in order to verify the validity of our analytical results. In turn, the validity of the computational constraints under which the method guarantees the preservation of the boundedness of the approximations, is successfully tested by means of computational experiments in some particular instances.