Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / iii / Paper 341 / 3 / a

Write $h=\Delta x$ and set $u_0=u_{M+1}=0$. In the discrete L2 norm $\Vert u{\Vert }_h^2=h{\sum }_{m=1}^M|u_m{|}^2$, the energy method givesTo obtain this identity, shift the indices in the centered second-difference sum. The centered first-difference matrix is skew-symmetric, so its contribution has zero real part even for complex grid values. The homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions remove the endpoint terms.

Therefore the semidiscretization is stable for every real $\alpha$ and every positive $h$, with the mesh-independent bound $\Vert u(t){\Vert }_h\le \Vert u(0){\Vert }_h$. No restriction on $|\alpha |h$ is needed for this energy estimate.