A second-order accurate, positive-preserving and mass conservative linear scheme for the Possion-Nernst-Planck equations

Abstract: The first-order linear positivity preserving schemes in time are available for the time dependent Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) equations, second-order linear ones are still challenging. This paper proposes the first- and second-order exponential time differencing schemes with the finite difference spatial discretization for PNP equations, based on the $Slotboom$ transformation of the Nernst-Planck equations and linear stabilization technique. The proposed schemes are linear and preserve the mass conservation and positivity preservation of ion concentration at full discrete level without any constraints on the time step size. The corresponding energy stability analysis is also presented, demonstrating that the second-order scheme can dissipate the modified energy. Extensive numerical results are carried out to support the theoretical findings and showcase the performance of the proposed schemes.