ff-bifbox: A scalable, open-source toolbox for bifurcation analysis of nonlinear PDEs

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Douglas, Christopher M., Jolivet, Pierre
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911711886311424
author Douglas, Christopher M.
Jolivet, Pierre
author_facet Douglas, Christopher M.
Jolivet, Pierre
contents Nonlinear PDEs give rise to complex dynamics that are often difficult to analyze in state space due to their relatively large numbers of degrees of freedom, ill-conditioned operators, and changing spatial and parameter resolution requirements. This work introduces ff-bifbox: a new open-source toolbox for performing numerical branch tracing, stability/bifurcation analysis, resolvent analysis, and time integration of large, time-dependent nonlinear PDEs discretized on adaptively refined meshes in two and three spatial dimensions. Spatial discretization is handled using finite elements in FreeFEM, with the discretized operators manipulated in a distributed framework via PETSc. Following a summary of the underlying theory and numerics, results from three examples are presented to validate the implementation and demonstrate its capabilities. The considered examples, which are provided with runnable ff-bifbox code, include: a 3-D Brusselator system, a 3-D plate buckling system, and a 2-D compressible Navier--Stokes system. In addition to reproducing results from prior studies, novel results are presented for each system.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_18429
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ff-bifbox: A scalable, open-source toolbox for bifurcation analysis of nonlinear PDEs
Douglas, Christopher M.
Jolivet, Pierre
Numerical Analysis
Mathematical Physics
Nonlinear PDEs give rise to complex dynamics that are often difficult to analyze in state space due to their relatively large numbers of degrees of freedom, ill-conditioned operators, and changing spatial and parameter resolution requirements. This work introduces ff-bifbox: a new open-source toolbox for performing numerical branch tracing, stability/bifurcation analysis, resolvent analysis, and time integration of large, time-dependent nonlinear PDEs discretized on adaptively refined meshes in two and three spatial dimensions. Spatial discretization is handled using finite elements in FreeFEM, with the discretized operators manipulated in a distributed framework via PETSc. Following a summary of the underlying theory and numerics, results from three examples are presented to validate the implementation and demonstrate its capabilities. The considered examples, which are provided with runnable ff-bifbox code, include: a 3-D Brusselator system, a 3-D plate buckling system, and a 2-D compressible Navier--Stokes system. In addition to reproducing results from prior studies, novel results are presented for each system.
title ff-bifbox: A scalable, open-source toolbox for bifurcation analysis of nonlinear PDEs
topic Numerical Analysis
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.18429