This book results from various lectures given in recent years. Early drafts were used for several single semester courses on singular perturbation meth ods given at Rensselaer, and a more complete version was used for a one year course at the Technische Universitat Wien. Some portions have been used for short lecture series at Universidad Central de Venezuela, West Vir ginia University, the University of Southern California, the University of California at Davis, East China Normal University, the University of Texas at Arlington, Universita di Padova, and the University of New Hampshire, among other places. As a result, I've obtained lots of valuable feedback from students and listeners, for which I am grateful. This writing continues a pattern. Earlier lectures at Bell Laboratories, at the University of Edin burgh and New York University, and at the Australian National University led to my earlier works (1968, 1974, and 1978). All seem to have been useful for the study of singular perturbations, and I hope the same will be true of this monograph. I've personally learned much from reading and analyzing the works of others, so I would especially encourage readers to treat this book as an introduction to a diverse and exciting literature. The topic coverage selected is personal and reflects my current opin ions. An attempt has been made to encourage a consistent method of ap proaching problems, largely through correcting outer limits in regions of rapid change. Formal proofs of correctness are not emphasized.

Contains well-chosen examples and exercises A student-friendly introduction that follows a workbook type approach

This book is devoted solely to the boundary function method, which is one of the asymptotic methods.

This book is a revised and updated version, including a substantial portion of new material, of our text Perturbation Methods in Applied Mathematics (Springer Verlag, 1981). We present the material at a level that assumes some familiarity with the basics of ordinary and partial differential equations. Some of the more advanced ideas are reviewed as needed; therefore this book can serve as a text in either an advanced undergraduate course or a graduate-level course on the subject. Perturbation methods, first used by astronomers to predict the effects of small disturbances on the nominal motions of celestial bodies, have now become widely used analytical tools in virtually all branches of science. A problem lends itself to perturbation analysis if it is "close" to a simpler problem that can be solved exactly. Typically, this closeness is measured by the occurrence of a small dimensionless parameter, E, in the governing system (consisting of differential equations and boundary conditions) so that for E = 0 the resulting system is exactly solvable. The main mathematical tool used is asymptotic expansion with respect to a suitable asymptotic sequence of functions of E. In a regular perturbation problem, a straightforward procedure leads to a system of differential equations and boundary conditions for each term in the asymptotic expansion. This system can be solved recursively, and the accuracy of the result improves as E gets smaller, for all values of the independent variables throughout the domain of interest. We discuss regular perturbation problems in the first chapter.

This new edition incorporates new developments in numerical methods for singularly perturbed differential equations, focusing on linear convection-diffusion equations and on nonlinear flow problems that appear in computational fluid dynamics.

Since the first edition of this book, the literature on fitted mesh methods for singularly perturbed problems has expanded significantly. Over the intervening years, fitted meshes have been shown to be effective for an extensive set of singularly perturbed partial differential equations. In the revised version of this book, the reader will find an introduction to the basic theory associated with fitted numerical methods for singularly perturbed differential equations. Fitted mesh methods focus on the appropriate distribution of the mesh points for singularly perturbed problems. The global errors in the numerical approximations are measured in the pointwise maximum norm. The fitted mesh algorithm is particularly simple to implement in practice, but the theory of why these numerical methods work is far from simple. This book can be used as an introductory text to the theory underpinning fitted mesh methods.

The importance of mathematics in the study of problems arising from the real world, and the increasing success with which it has been used to model situations ranging from the purely deterministic to the stochastic, is well established. The purpose of the set of volumes to which the present one belongs is to make available authoritative, up to date, and self-contained accounts of some of the most important and useful of these analytical approaches and techniques. Each volume provides a detailed introduction to a specific subject area of current importance that is summarized below, and then goes beyond this by reviewing recent contributions, and so serving as a valuable reference source. The progress in applicable mathematics has been brought about by the extension and development of many important analytical approaches and techniques, in areas both old and new, frequently aided by the use of computers without which the solution of realistic problems would otherwise have been impossible.

This book is a revised and updated version, including a substantial portion of new material, of J. D. Cole's text Perturbation Methods in Applied Mathe matics, Ginn-Blaisdell, 1968. We present the material at a level which assumes some familiarity with the basics of ordinary and partial differential equations. Some of the more advanced ideas are reviewed as needed; therefore this book can serve as a text in either an advanced undergraduate course or a graduate level course on the subject. The applied mathematician, attempting to understand or solve a physical problem, very often uses a perturbation procedure. In doing this, he usually draws on a backlog of experience gained from the solution of similar examples rather than on some general theory of perturbations. The aim of this book is to survey these perturbation methods, especially in connection with differ ential equations, in order to illustrate certain general features common to many examples. The basic ideas, however, are also applicable to integral equations, integrodifferential equations, and even to_difference equations. In essence, a perturbation procedure consists of constructing the solution for a problem involving a small parameter B, either in the differential equation or the boundary conditions or both, when the solution for the limiting case B = 0 is known. The main mathematical tool used is asymptotic expansion with respect to a suitable asymptotic sequence of functions of B.

This book is a rigorous presentation of the method of matched asymptotic expansions, the primary tool for attacking singular perturbation problems. A knowledge of conventional asymptotic analysis is assumed. The first chapter introduces the theory and is followed by four chapters of applications to ordinary differential equation problems of increasing complexity. Exercises are included as well as several Maple programs for computing the terms of the various asymptotic expansions that arise in solving the problems.

Our purpose in writing this monograph is twofold. On the one hand, we want to collect in one place many of the recent results on the exist ence and asymptotic behavior of solutions of certain classes of singularly perturbed nonlinear boundary value problems. On the other, we hope to raise along the way a number of questions for further study, mostly ques tions we ourselves are unable to answer. The presentation involves a study of both scalar and vector boundary value problems for ordinary dif ferential equations, by means of the consistent use of differential in equality techniques. Our results for scalar boundary value problems obeying some type of maximum principle are fairly complete; however, we have been unable to treat, under any circumstances, problems involving "resonant" behavior. The linear theory for such problems is incredibly complicated already, and at the present time there appears to be little hope for any kind of general nonlinear theory. Our results for vector boundary value problems, even those admitting higher dimensional maximum principles in the form of invariant regions, are also far from complete. We offer them with some trepidation, in the hope that they may stimulate further work in this challenging and important area of differential equa tions. The research summarized here has been made possible by the support over the years of the National Science Foundation and the National Science and Engineering Research Council.