Error estimates for shooting methods in two-point boundary value problems for second order equations

This paper is concerned with a procedure for estimating the global discretization error arising when a boundary value problem for a system of second order differential equations is solved by the simple shooting method, without transforming the original problem in an equivalent first order problem. Expressions of the global discretization error are derived for both linear and nonlinear boundary value problems, which reduce the error estimation for a boundary value problem to that for an initial value problem of same dimension. The procedure extends to second order equations a technique for global error estimation given elsewhere for first order equations. As a practical result the accuracy of the estimates for a second order problem is increased compared with the estimates for the equivalent first order problem.