
# 2.9 Heun's method

From (2.29) or (2.33) we have $$$$\tag{2.76} y''(x_n,y_n)=f'\left(x_n,y(x_n,y_n)\right)\approx \frac{f(x_n+h)-f(x_n)}{h}$$$$ The Taylor series expansion (2.27) gives $$\begin{equation*} y(x_n+h)=y(x_n)+hy'[x_n,y(x_n)]+\frac{h^2}{2}y''[x_n,y(x_n)]+O(h^3) \end{equation*}$$ which, inserting (2.76), gives $$$$\tag{2.77} y_{n+1}=y_n+\frac{h}{2}\cdot [f(x_n,y_n)+f(x_{n+1},y(x_{n+1}))]$$$$

This formula is called the trapezoidal formula, since it reduces to computing an integral with the trapezoidal rule if $$f(x,y)$$ is only a function of $$x$$. Since $$y_{n+1}$$ appears on both sides of the equation, this is an implicit formula which means that we need to solve a system of non-linear algebraic equations if the function $$f(x,y)$$ is non-linear. One way of making the scheme explicit is to use the Euler scheme (2.55) to calculate $$y(x_{n+1})$$ on the right side of (2.77). The resulting scheme is often denoted Heun's method.

The scheme for Heun's method becomes \begin{align} &y^p_{n+1}=y_n+h\cdot f(x_n,y_n) \tag{2.78} \\ &y_{n +1}=y_n+\frac{h}{2}\cdot[f(x_n,y_n)+f(x_{n+1},y^p_{n+1})] \tag{2.79} \end{align} Index $$p$$ stands for "predicted". (2.78) is then the predictor and (2.79) is the corrector. This is a second order method. For more details, see [5]. Figure 12 is a graphical illustration of the method.

Figure 12: Illustration of Heun's method.

In principle we could make an iteration procedure where we after using the corrector use the corrected values to correct the corrected values to make a new predictor and so on. This will likely lead to a more accurate solution of the difference scheme, but not necessarily of the differential equation. We are therefore satisfied by using the corrector once. For a system, we get \begin{align} & \mathbf{y^p_{n+1}}=\mathbf{y_n}+h\cdot \mathbf{f}(x_n,\mathbf{y_n}) \tag{2.80}\\ & \mathbf{y_{n+1}}=\mathbf{y_n} +\frac{h}{2}\cdot [\mathbf{f}(x_n,\mathbf{y_n})+\mathbf{f}(x_{n+1},\mathbf{y^p_{n+1}})] \tag{2.81} \end{align} Note that $$\mathbf{y}^p_{n+1}$$ is a temporary variable that is not necessary to store.

If we use (2.80) and (2.81) on the example in (2.64) we get

Predictor: \begin{align*} (y_1)^p_{n+1}&=(y_1)_n+h\cdot (y_2)_n&\\ (y_2)^p_{n+1}&=(y_2)_n+h\cdot (y_3)_n&\\ (y_3)^p_{n+1}&=(y_3)_n-h\cdot (y_1)_n\cdot (y_3)_n \end{align*} Corrector: \begin{align*} (y_1)_{n+1}&=(y_1)_n+0.5h\cdot [(y_2)_n+(y_2)^p_{n+1}]&\\ (y_2)_{n+1}&=(y_2)_n+0.5h\cdot [(y_3)_n+(y_3)^p_{n+1}]&\\ (y_3)_{n+1}&=(y_3)_n-0.5h\cdot [(y_1)_n\cdot (y_3)_n+(y_1)^p_{n+1}\cdot (y_3)^p_{n+1}] \end{align*}