On Energy Laws and Stability of First-Subdiagonal Pade Approximants for Linear Seminegative Problems

Abstract

We derive an explicit discrete energy identity for rational time discretizations generated by the first-subdiagonal Padé approximants of the exponential for solving linear seminegative problems. This work extends the diagonal Padé energy laws in [Z. Sun, Y. Wei, and K. Wu, SIAM J. Numer. Anal., 60 (2022)] to the first-subdiagonal family. The main new ingredient is an explicit Cholesky-type factorization of the energy coefficient matrix associated with the semi-inner-product terms in the discrete energy identity. The construction and proof of this factorization are nontrivial, since the matrix entries are alternating sums of Padé coefficients and the triangular factor has a parity-dependent factorial structure. We prove the factorization by reducing it to scalar rational identities and establishing them through finite product reductions and telescoping summations. Together with a β-coefficient cancellation, the factorization yields an exact discrete energy law that recovers the classical unconditional contractivity for linear seminegative problems. Numerical experiments adapted from the diagonal Padé energy-law setting illustrate the predicted order and verify the discrete dissipation identity.