A Third-Order p-Laplacian Boundary Value Problem Solved by an SL(3,ℝ) Lie-Group Shooting Method

• Main Author: Chein-Shan Liu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2013-01-01
• Series: Journal of Applied Mathematics
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/497863

The boundary layer problem for power-law fluid can be recast to a third-order p-Laplacian boundary value problem (BVP). In this paper, we transform the third-order p-Laplacian into a new system which exhibits a Lie-symmetry SL(3,ℝ). Then, the closure property of the Lie-group is used to derive a linear transformation between the boundary values at two ends of a spatial interval. Hence, we can iteratively solve the missing left boundary conditions, which are determined by matching the right boundary conditions through a finer tuning of r∈[0,1]. The present SL(3,ℝ) Lie-group shooting method is easily implemented and is efficient to tackle the multiple solutions of the third-order p-Laplacian. When the missing left boundary values can be determined accurately, we can apply the fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) method to obtain a quite accurate numerical solution of the p-Laplacian.