A unit-modulus amplification root of a linear multistep method puts its test-equation parameter on this boundary locus, except when numerator and denominator both vanish. If the locus avoids the open left half-plane, the leading coefficient never vanishes there and the roots are initially inside the disk at one point there, continuity keeps them inside throughout that connected region. Checking zero-stability, imaginary-axis roots and common polynomial factors is still necessary. A boundary plot alone is not a proof of A-stability.
For an initial value problem, convergence means that the largest global error on each fixed finite time interval tends to zero as the step size tends to zero and the starting errors vanish. For linear multistep methods, the Dahlquist equivalence theorem separates this requirement into consistency of a numerical method and zero-stability.
For a fixed-step multiderivative multistep method, the ordinary zero-stability root condition still controls propagation of the starting errors when all derivative evaluation maps are uniformly Lipschitz continuous on the relevant bounded region. A local defect then yields global error over a fixed time interval, provided the starting errors are and the implicit updates use the nearby solution branch.
For example, writing the numerical error equation as , with uniformly Lipschitz continuous, a bounded impulse response for the root condition for a multistep method gives
Absorbing the last current-step term for small and applying the discrete Gronwall inequality gives the stated order. The higher derivatives enter through , whose bound stays uniform as .