Finite differences and boundary element methods for non-stationary viscous incompressible flow

We consider an implicit fractional step procedure for the time discretization of the non-stationary Stokes equations in smoothly bounded domains of ℝ³. We prove optimal convergence properties uniformly in time in a scale of Sobolev spaces, under a certain regularity of the solution. We develop a representation for the solution of the discretized equations in the form of potentials and the uniquely determined solution of some system of boundary integral equations. For the numerical computation of the potentials and the solution of the boundary integral equations a boundary element method of collocation type is carried out.