High-order numerical method for the nonlinear Helmholtz equation with material discontinuities in one space dimension

The nonlinear Helmholtz equation (NLH) models the propagation of electromagnetic waves in Kerr media, and describes a range of important phenomena in nonlinear optics and in other areas. In our previous work, we developed a fourth order method for its numerical solution that involved an iterative solver based on freezing the nonlinearity. The method enabled a direct simulation of nonlinear self-focusing in the nonparaxial regime, and a quantitative prediction of backscattering. However, our simulations showed that there is a threshold value for the magnitude of the nonlinearity, above which the iterations diverge. In this study, we numerically solve the one-dimensional NLH using a Newton-type nonlinear solver. Because the Kerr nonlinearity contains absolute values of the field, the NLH has to be recast as a system of two real equations in order to apply Newton's method. Our numerical simulations show that Newton's method converges rapidly and, in contradistinction with the iterations based on freezing the nonlinearity, enables computations for very high levels of nonlinearity. In addition, we introduce a novel compact finite-volume fourth order discretization for the NLH with material discontinuities.The one-dimensional results of the current paper create a foundation for the analysis of multi-dimensional problems in the future.Comment: 47 pages, 8 figure

ABC Method and Fractional Momentum Layer for the FDTD Method to Solve the Schrödinger Equation on Unbounded Domains

The finite­difference time­domain (FDTD) method and its generalized variant (G­FDTD) are efficient numerical tools for solving the linear and nonlinear Schrödinger equations because not only are they explicit, allowing parallelization, but they also provide high­order accuracy with relatively inexpensive computational costs. In addition, the G­FDTD method has a relaxed stability condition when compared to the original FDTD method. It is important to note that the existing simulations of the G­FDTD scheme employed analytical solutions to obtain function values at the points along the boundary; however, in simulations for which the analytical solution is unknown, theoretical approximations for values at points along the boundary are desperately needed. Hence, the objective of this dissertation research is to develop absorbing boundary conditions (ABCs) so that the G­FDTD method can be used to solve the nonlinear Schrödinger equation when the analytical solution is unknown. To create the ABCs for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, we initially determine the associated Engquist­Majda one­way wave equations and then proceed to develop a finite difference scheme for them. These ABCs are made to be adaptive using a windowed Fourier transform to estimate a value of the wavenumber of the carrier wave. These ABCs were tested using the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for 1D and 2D soliton propagation as well as Gaussian packet collision and dipole radiation. Results show that these ABCs perform well, but they have three key limitations. First, there are inherent reflections at the interface of the interior and boundary domains due to the different schemes used the two regions; second, to use the ABCs, one needs to estimate a value for the carrier wavenumber and poor estimates can cause even more reflection at the interface; and finally, the ABCs require different schemes in different regions of the boundary, and this domain decomposition makes the ABCs tedious both to develop and to implement. To address these limitations for the FDTD method, we employ the fractional­order derivative concept to unify the Schrödinger equation with its one­way wave equation over an interval where the fractional order is allowed to vary. Through careful construction of a variable­order fractional momentum operator, outgoing waves may enter the fractionalorder region with little to no reflection and, inside this region, any reflected portions of the wave will decay exponentially with time. The fractional momentum operator is then used to create a fractional­order FDTD scheme. Importantly, this single scheme can be used for the entire computational domain, and the scheme smooths the abrupt transition between the FDTD method and the ABCs. Furthermore, the fractional FDTD scheme relaxes the precision needed for the estimated carrier wavenumber. This fractional FDTD scheme is tested for both the linear and nonlinear Schrödinger equations. Example cases include a 1D Gaussian packet scattering off of a potential, a 1D soliton propagating to the right, as well as 2D soliton propagation, and the collision of Gaussian packets. Results show that the fractional FDTD method outperforms the FDTD method with ABCs

Numerical methods for generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equations

We present and analyze different splitting algorithms for numerical solution of the both classical and generalized nonlinear Schr"odinger equations describing propagation of wave packets with special emphasis on applications to nonlinear fiber-optics. The considered generalizations take into account the higher-order corrections of the linear differential dispersion operator as well as the saturation of nonlinearity and the self-steepening of the field envelope function. For stabilization of the pseudo-spectral splitting schemes for generalized Schr"odinger equations a regularization based on the approximation of the derivatives by the low number of Fourier modes is proposed. To illustrate the theoretically predicted performance of these schemes several numerical experiments have been done

Numerical algorithms for Schrödinger equation with artificial boundary conditions

We consider a one-dimensional linear Schrödinger problem defined on an infinite domain and approximated by the Crank-Nicolson type finite difference scheme. To solve this problem numerically we restrict the computational domain by introducing the reflective, absorbing or transparent artificial boundary conditions. We investigate the conservativity of the discrete scheme with respect to the mass and energy of the solution. Results of computational experiments are presented and the efficiency of different artificial boundary conditions is discussed

Implementing exact absorbing boundary condition for the linear one-dimensional Schrödinger problem with variable potential by Titchmarsh--Weyl theory

A new approach for simulating the solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with a general variable potential will be proposed. The key idea is to approximate the Titchmarsh-Weyl m-function (exact Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator) by a rational function with respect to a suitable spectral parameter. With the proposed method we can overcome the usual high-frequency restriction for absorbing boundary conditions of general variable potential problems. We end up with a fast computational algorithm for absorbing boundary conditions that are accurate for the full frequency band

Implementing exact absorbing boundary condition for the linear one-dimensional Schrödinger problem with variable potential by Titchmarsh-Weyl theory

A new approach for simulating the solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with a general variable potential will be proposed. The key idea is to approximate the Titchmarsh-Weyl m-function (exact Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator) by a rational function with respect to a suitable spectral parameter. With the proposed method we can overcome the usual high-frequency restriction for absorbing boundary conditions of general variable potential problems. We end up with a fast computational algorithm for absorbing boundary conditions that are accurate for the full frequency ban

On nonparaxial nonlinear Schrödinger-type equations

In this paper the one-dimensional nonparaxial nonlinear Schrödinger equation is considered. This was proposed as an alternative to the classical nonlinear Schrödinger equation in those situations where the assumption of paraxiality may fail. The paper contributes to the mathematical properties of the equation in a two-fold way. First, some theoretical results on linear well-posedness, Hamiltonian and multi-symplectic formulations are derived. Then we propose to take into account these properties in order to deal with the numerical approximation. In this sense, different numerical procedures that preserve the Hamiltonian and multi-symplectic structures are discussed and illustrated with numerical experiments