A numerical procedure for diffusion subject to the specification of mass

Abstract An application of the maximum principle yields an a priori estimate for the derivative u x of the solution u of u t = u xx +s 0 , subject to u(x, 0) = f(x), 0 , and the specification of mass ∫ 0 b(t) u(x,t) d x = m(t), 0 . From this a priori estimate the continuous dependence of the solution u on the data is established. The maximum principle can also be applied to a numerical scheme for the derivative of u . Thus convergence is shown for an elementary numerical scheme. The article concludes with the results of some numerical experiments.