Classical Theory of Linear Multistep Methods for Volterra Functional Differential Equations

Based on the linear multistep methods for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and the canonical interpolation theory that was presented by Shoufu Li who is exactly the second author of this paper, we propose the linear multistep methods for general Volterra functional differential equations (VFDEs) and build the classical stability, consistency, and convergence theories of the methods. The methods and theories presented in this paper are applicable to nonneutral, nonstiff, and nonlinear initial value problems in ODEs, Volterra delay differential equations (VDDEs), Volterra integro-differential equations (VIDEs), Volterra delay integro-differential equations (VDIDEs), etc. At last, some numerical experiments verify the correctness of our theories.