Mathematica Tutorial

Introduction to Initial and Boundary Value Problems

DSolve can be used for finding the general solution to a differential equation or system of differential equations. The general solution gives information about the structure of the complete solution space for the problem. However, in practice, one is often interested only in particular solutions that satisfy some conditions related to the area of application. These conditions are usually of two types.

The solution x (t) and/or its derivatives are required to have specific values at a single point, for example, x (0)1 and x (0)2. Such problems are traditionally called initial value problems (IVPs) because the system is assumed to start evolving from the fixed initial point (in this case, 0).

The solution x (t) is required to have specific values at a pair of points, for example, x (0)3 and x (1)5. These problems are known as boundary value problems (BVPs) since the points 0 and 1 are regarded as boundary points (or edges) of the domain of interest in the application.

The symbolic solution of both IVPs and BVPs requires knowledge of the general solution for the problem. The final step, in which the particular solution is obtained using the initial or boundary values, involves mostly algebraic operations, and is similar for IVPs and for BVPs.

IVPs and BVPs for linear differential equations are solved rather easily since the final algebraic step involves the solution of linear equations. However, if the underlying equations are nonlinear, the solution could have several branches, or the arbitrary constants from the general solution could occur in different arguments of transcendental functions. As a result, it is not always possible to complete the final algebraic step for nonlinear problems. Finally, if the underlying equations have piecewise (that is, discontinuous) coefficients, an IVP naturally breaks up into simpler IVPs over the regions in which the coefficients are continuous.