Weighted finite difference methods for a nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation with high oscillations in space and time

We consider a nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation in the nonrelativistic limit regime with initial data in the form of a modulated highly oscillatory exponential. In this regime of a small scaling parameter $\varepsilon$, the solution exhibits rapid oscillations in both time and space, posing challenges for numerical approximation. We propose an explicit and an implicit exponentially weighted finite difference method. While the explicit weighted leapfrog method needs to satisfy a CFL-type stability condition, the implicit weighted Crank–Nicolson method is unconditionally stable. Both methods achieve second-order accuracy with time steps and mesh sizes that are not restricted in magnitude by $\varepsilon$. The methods are uniformly convergent in the range from arbitrarily small to moderately bounded $\varepsilon$. Numerical experiments illustrate the theoretical results.