A Mathematical Analysis of a Smooth-Convex-Concave Splitting Scheme for the Swift--Hohenberg Equation

Abstract: The Swift--Hohenberg equation is a widely studied fourth-order model, originally proposed to describe hydrodynamic fluctuations. It admits an energy-dissipation law and, under suitable assumptions, bounded solutions. Many structure-preserving numerical schemes have been proposed to retain such properties; however, existing approaches are often fully implicit and therefore computationally expensive. We introduce a simple design principle for constructing dissipation-preserving finite difference schemes and apply it to the Swift--Hohenberg equation in three spatial dimensions. Our analysis relies on discrete inequalities for the underlying energy, assuming a Lipschitz continuous gradient and either convexity or $μ$-strong convexity of the relevant terms. The resulting method is linearly implicit, yet it preserves the original energy-dissipation law, guarantees unique solvability, ensures boundedness of numerical solutions, and admits an a priori error estimate, provided that the time step is sufficiently small. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first linearly implicit finite difference scheme for the Swift--Hohenberg equation for which all of these properties are established.