Absorbing boundary conditions are important when one simulates the propagation of waves on a bounded numerical domain without creating artificial reflections. In this paper, we consider various hyperbolic–dispersive equations modeling water wave propagation. A typical example is the Korteweg–de Vries equation 1ut+uux+εuxxx=0,∀x∈R,∀t>0.\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\begin{aligned} \displaystyle u_t+u\,u_x+\varepsilon u_{xxx}=0,\quad \forall x\in {\mathbb {R}}, \quad \forall t>0. \end{aligned}$$\end{document}In the case of linearized equations, some progress was recently done for one dimensional scalar dispersive equations using discrete transparent boundary conditions. However, a generalization of this approach to multi-dimensional setting is not obvious. In this paper, we consider the alternative perfectly matched layer (PML) approach for the linearized Korteweg–de Vries equation: 2ut+Uux+εuxxx=0∀x∈R,∀t>0,\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$\begin{aligned} \displaystyle u_t+U\,u_x+\varepsilon u_{xxx}=0\quad \forall x\in {\mathbb {R}}, \quad \forall t>0, \end{aligned}$$\end{document}where U∈R\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$U\in {\mathbb {R}}$$\end{document} denotes a reference speed. We first propose a direct perfectly matched layer approach and study the stability of the modified system. These equations are not always stable, the main obstruction being the classical condition vg(k)vϕ(k)≥0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$v_g(k)v_\phi (k)\ge 0$$\end{document} found in the literature on PML (Bécache et al in J Comput Phys 188(2):399–433, 2003) that we recover in our analysis. Then, we introduce a hyperbolic system with a source term that is an approximation of the Korteweg–de Vries equations. In this case, the complete PML equations are not, again, completely stable. However, a version of the PML equations for this system derived without the source term is found to be stable and can absorb outgoing waves although it may create reflections as it is not perfectly matched. Finally, we consider the BBM–Boussinesq system that models bi-directional waves at the surface of an inviscid fluid layer. The dispersive properties for a subclass of physically relevant models are better suited for PML techniques since the condition vg(k)vϕ(k)≥0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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\begin{document}$$v_g(k)v_\phi (k)\ge 0$$\end{document} is always satisfied. We show that the PML equations are always stable in this case. We illustrate numerically the absorbing and stability properties of these PML models and provide also KdV type simulation by choosing properly initial data.
