Solution operator approximation for characteristic roots of delay differential equations

In this paper a new method for the numerical computation of characteristic roots for linear autonomous systems of Delay Differential Equations (DDEs) is proposed. The new approach enlarges the class of methods recently developed (see [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 40 (2002) 629; D. Breda, Methods for numerical computation of characteristic roots for delay differential equations: experimental comparison, in: BIOCOMP2002: Topics in Biomathematics and Related Computational Problems at the Beginning of the Third Millennium, Vietri, Italy, 2002, Sci. Math. Jpn. 58 (2) pp. 377–388; D. Breda, The infinitesimal generator approach for the computation of characteristic roots for delay differential equations using BDF methods, Research Report RR2/2002, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Università di Udine, Italy, 2002; IMA J. Numer. Anal. 24 (2004) 1; SIAM J. Sci. Comput. (2004), in press]) and in particular it is based on a Runge–Kutta (RK) time discretization of the solution operator associated with the system. Hence this paper revisits the Linear Multistep (LMS) approach presented in [SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 40 (2002) 629] for the multiple discrete delay case and moreover extends it to the distributed delay case. We prove that the method converges with the same order as the underlying RK scheme and illustrate this with some numerical tests that are also used to compare the method with other existing techniques.