We compare an internal state method and a direct Runge-Kutta method for solving Volterra integro-differential equations and Volterra delay differential equations. The internal state method requires the kernel of the Volterra integral to be realizable as an impulse response function. We discover that when applicable, the internal state method is orders of magnitude more efficient than the direct numerical method. However, constructing state representation for realizable kernels can be challenging at times; therefore, we propose a rational approximation approach to avoid the problem. That is, we approximate the transfer function by a rational function, construct the corresponding linear system, and then approximate the Volterra integro-differential equation. We show that our method is convergent for the case where the kernel is nuclear. We focus our attention on time-invariant realizations but the case where the state representation of the kernel is a time-variant linear system is briefly discussed. / Ph. D.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / Efficient numerical approaches for parameter dependent problems have been an inter- esting subject to numerical analysts and engineers over the past decades. This is due to the prominent role that these problems play in modeling many real life situations in applied sciences. Often, the choice and the e ciency of the approaches depend on the nature of the problem to solve. In this work, we consider the general linear first-order singularly perturbed Volterra integro-differential equations (SPVIDEs). These singularly perturbed problems (SPPs) are governed by integro-differential equations in which the derivative term is multiplied by a small parameter, known as "perturbation parameter". It is known that when this perturbation parameter approaches zero, the solution undergoes fast transitions across narrow regions of the domain (termed boundary or interior layer) thus affecting the convergence of the standard numerical methods. Therefore one often seeks for numerical approaches which preserve stability for all the values of the perturbation parameter, that is "numerical methods. This work seeks to investigate some "numerical methods that have been used to solve SPVIDEs. It also proposes alternative ones. The various numerical methods are composed of a fitted finite difference scheme used along with suitably chosen interpolating quadrature rules. For each method investigated or designed, we analyse its stability and convergence. Finally, numerical computations are carried out on some test examples to con rm the robustness and competitiveness of the proposed methods.