Abstract
This paper reports a new formula expressing the Caputo fractional derivatives for any order of shifted generalized Jacobi polynomials of any degree in terms of shifted generalized Jacobi polynomials themselves. A direct solution technique is presented for solving multiterm fractional differential equations (FDEs) subject to nonhomogeneous initial conditions using spectral shifted generalized Jacobi Galerkin method. The homogeneous initial conditions are satisfied exactly by using a class of shifted generalized Jacobi polynomials as a polynomial basis of the truncated expansion for the approximate solution. The approximation of the spatial Caputo fractional order derivatives is expanded in terms of a class of shifted generalized Jacobi polynomials J(n)(alpha,-beta) (x) with x is an element of(0,1), and n is the polynomial degree. Several numerical examples with comparisons with the exact solutions are given to confirm the reliability of the proposed method for multiterm FDEs.