We develop and analyze a class of maximum bound preserving schemes for approximately solving Allen--Cahn equations. We apply a $k$th-order single-step scheme in time (where the nonlinear term is linearized by multi-step extrapolation), and a lumped mass finite element method in space with piecewise $r$th-order polynomials and Gauss--Lobatto quadrature. At each time level, a cut-off post-processing is proposed to eliminate extra values violating the maximum bound principle at the finite element nodal points. As a result, the numerical solution satisfies the maximum bound principle (at all nodal points), and the optimal error bound $O(tau^k+h^{r+1})$ is theoretically proved for a certain class of schemes. These time stepping schemes under consideration includes algebraically stable collocation-type methods, which could be arbitrarily high-order in both space and time. Moreover, combining the cut-off strategy with the scalar auxiliary value (SAV) technique, we develop a class of energy-stable and maximum bound preserving schemes, which is arbitrarily high-order in time. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed method.
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