An explicit fourth-order accurate compact method for the Allen-Cahn equation

In this paper, we propose an explicit spatially fourth-order accurate compact scheme for the Allen-Cahn equation in one-, two-, and three-dimensional spaces. The proposed method is based on the explicit Euler time integration scheme and fourth-order compact finite difference method. The proposed numerical solution algorithm is highly efficient and simple to implement because it is an explicit scheme. There is no need to solve implicitly a system of discrete equations as in the case of implicit numerical schemes. Furthermore, when we consider the temporally accurate numerical solutions, the time step restriction is not severe because the governing equation is a second-order parabolic partial differential equation. Computational tests are conducted to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed spatially fourth-order accurate compact method for the Allen-Cahn equation.