Error estimate for semi-implicit method of sphere-constrained high-index saddle dynamics

Abstract: We prove error estimates for the semi-implicit numerical scheme of sphere-constrained high-index saddle dynamics, which serves as a powerful instrument in finding saddle points and constructing the solution landscapes of constrained systems on the high-dimensional sphere. Due to the semi-implicit treatment and the novel computational procedure, the orthonormality of numerical solutions at each time step could not be fully employed to simplify the derivations, and the computations of the state variable and directional vectors are coupled with the retraction, the vector transport and the orthonormalization procedure, which significantly complicates the analysis. We address these issues to prove error estimates for the proposed semi-implicit scheme and then carry out numerical experiments to substantiate the theoretical findings.