Symmetric half-grid diffusion consistency

Evaluating a variable diffusion coefficient at both adjacent half-grid points makes odd spatial Taylor terms cancel. The conservative spatial bracket is $h^2(a{u}_x{)}_x+O(h^4)$, yielding a fourth-order one-step residual when the forward time step is proportional to $h^2$.

For $0<a(x)\le \beta$, the explicit conservative diffusion update has weights $k{a}_{m-1/2}/h^2$, $1-k(a_{m-1/2}+a_{m+1/2})/h^2$, and $k{a}_{m+1/2}/h^2$. Under the displayed restriction they are nonnegative and sum to one. With zero Dirichlet boundary conditions, each new value is a convex combination of old interior and boundary values, proving contraction in the discrete maximum norm. The spatial matrix is also symmetric with $v^T{L}_{h}v=-h^{-2}\sum a_{m+1/2}(v_{m+1}-v_m{)}^2$. This puts its eigenvalues in $[-4\beta /h^2,0]$, so the same restriction gives L2 norm contraction. A stable recurrence need not be consistent with a different proposed differential equation.