Convergence Analysis on a Second-Order, Positive, and Unconditional Energy Dissipative Scheme for the Poisson-Nernst-Planck Equations

In this paper, we propose and analyze a second-order accurate numerical scheme for the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations. The proposed scheme combines a novel second-order temporal discretization with the centered finite difference method in space. By using a Taylor expansion for the logarithmic term in the chemical potential, this second-order accurate numerical scheme is able to preserve original energy dissipation. Based on the gradient flow formulation, the resulting scheme guarantees several crucial physical properties: mass conservation, positivity of ionic concentration, preservation of original energy dissipation, and steady states preservation. Remarkably, these properties are ensured without any restriction on the time step size. Furthermore, an optimal rate convergence estimate is provided for the proposed numerical scheme. Due to the non-constant mobility and the nonlinear and singular properties of the logarithm terms, a higher-order asymptotic expansion and a combination of rough and refined error estimation techniques are introduced to accomplish this analysis. A few numerical tests are provided to validate our theoretical claims.