A time-splitting pseudospectral method for the solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equations using spherical harmonics with generalised-Laguerre basis functions

We present a method for numerically solving a Gross-Pitaevskii system of equations with a harmonic and a toroidal external potential that governs the dynamics of one- and two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. The method we develop maintains spectral accuracy by employing Fourier or spherical harmonics in the angular coordinates combined with generalised-Laguerre basis functions in the radial direction. Using an error analysis, we show that the method presented leads to more accurate results than one based on a sine transform in the radial direction when combined with a time-splitting method for integrating the equations forward in time. In contrast to a number of previous studies, no assumptions of radial or cylindrical symmetry is assumed allowing the method to be applied to 2D and 3D time-dependent simulations. This is accomplished by developing an efficient algorithm that accurately performs the generalised-Laguerre transforms of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates for different orders of the Laguerre polynomials. Using this spatial discretisation together with a second order Strang time-splitting method, we illustrate the scheme on a number of 2D and 3D computations of the ground state of a non-rotating and rotating condensate. Comparisons between previously derived theoretical results for these ground state solutions and our numerical computations show excellent agreement for these benchmark problems. The method is further applied to simulate a number of time-dependent problems including the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in a two-component rotating condensate and the motion of quantised vortices in a 3D condensate

Solving periodic semilinear stiff PDEs in 1D, 2D and 3D with exponential integrators

Dozens of exponential integration formulas have been proposed for the high-accuracy solution of stiff PDEs such as the Allen-Cahn, Korteweg-de Vries and Ginzburg-Landau equations. We report the results of extensive comparisons in MATLAB and Chebfun of such formulas in 1D, 2D and 3D, focusing on fourth and higher order methods, and periodic semilinear stiff PDEs with constant coefficients. Our conclusion is that it is hard to do much better than one of the simplest of these formulas, the ETDRK4 scheme of Cox and Matthews

Accelerating the Fourier split operator method via graphics processing units

Current generations of graphics processing units have turned into highly parallel devices with general computing capabilities. Thus, graphics processing units may be utilized, for example, to solve time dependent partial differential equations by the Fourier split operator method. In this contribution, we demonstrate that graphics processing units are capable to calculate fast Fourier transforms much more efficiently than traditional central processing units. Thus, graphics processing units render efficient implementations of the Fourier split operator method possible. Performance gains of more than an order of magnitude as compared to implementations for traditional central processing units are reached in the solution of the time dependent Schr\"odinger equation and the time dependent Dirac equation

Numerical methods for accurate description of ultrashort pulses in optical fibers

We consider a one-dimensional first-order nonlinear wave equation (the so-called forward Maxwell equation, FME) that applies to a few-cycle optical pulse propagating along a preferred direction in a nonlinear medium, e.g., ultrashort pulses in nonlinear fibers. The model is a good approximation to the standard second-order wave equation under assumption of weak nonlinearity. We compare FME to the commonly accepted generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which quantifies the envelope of a quickly oscillating wave field based on the slowly varying envelope approximation. In our numerical example, we demonstrate that FME, in contrast to the envelope model, reveals new spectral lines when applied to few-cycle pulses. We analyze and compare pseudo-spectral numerical schemes employing symmetric splitting for both models. Finally, we adopt these schemes to a parallel computation and discuss scalability of the parallelization

A novel, structure-preserving, second-order-in-time relaxation scheme for Schrödinger-Poisson systems

The authors acknowledge the support from The Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant RIG008215 . I.K. would also like to acknowledge the support from London Mathematical Society through an Emmy Noether Fellowship . In addition, Th. K. and I.K. thank the Edinburgh Mathematical Society for the Covid Recovery Fund that allowed for the completion and the submission of this paper.We introduce a new structure preserving, second order in time relaxation-type scheme for approximating solutions of the Schrödinger-Poisson system. More specifically, we use the Crank-Nicolson scheme as a time stepping mechanism, whilst the nonlinearity is handled by means of a relaxation approach in the spirit of [10,11,34] for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. For the spatial discretisation we use the standard conforming finite element scheme. The resulting scheme is explicit with respect to the nonlinearity, i.e. it requires the solution of a linear system for each time-step, and satisfies discrete versions of the system's mass conservation and energy balance laws for constant meshes. The scheme is seen to be second order in time. We conclude by presenting some numerical experiments, including an example from cosmology and an example with variable time-steps which demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the new scheme.Peer reviewe

Numerical methods for accurate description of ultrashort pulses in optical fibers

We consider a one-dimensional first-order nonlinear wave equation (the so-called forward Maxwell equation, FME) that applies to a few-cycle optical pulse propagating along a preferred direction in a nonlinear medium, e.g., ultrashort pulses in nonlinear fibers. The model is a good approximation to the standard second-order wave equation under assumption of weak nonlinearity. We compare FME to the commonly accepted generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which quantifies the envelope of a quickly oscillating wave field based on the slowly varying envelope approximation. In our numerical example, we demonstrate that FME, in contrast to the envelope model, reveals new spectral lines when applied to few-cycle pulses. We analyze and compare pseudo-spectral numerical schemes employing symmetric splitting for both models. Finally, we adopt these schemes to a parallel computation and discuss scalability of the parallelization

Newtonian Quantum Gravity

Puts forward a complete scenario for interpreting nonlinear field theories highlighting the role played by gravitational self--energy in enabling a consistent revival of the Schroedinger approach to unifying micro and macro physics.Comment: 38 pages, RevTex. Uses epsf. Five "tar.gz" compressed PostScipt figures included separatel

Geometric Integrators for Schrödinger Equations

The celebrated Schrödinger equation is the key to understanding the dynamics of quantum mechanical particles and comes in a variety of forms. Its numerical solution poses numerous challenges, some of which are addressed in this work. Arguably the most important problem in quantum mechanics is the so-called harmonic oscillator due to its good approximation properties for trapping potentials. In Chapter 2, an algebraic correspondence-technique is introduced and applied to construct efficient splitting algorithms, based solely on fast Fourier transforms, which solve quadratic potentials in any number of dimensions exactly - including the important case of rotating particles and non-autonomous trappings after averaging by Magnus expansions. The results are shown to transfer smoothly to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in Chapter 3. Additionally, the notion of modified nonlinear potentials is introduced and it is shown how to efficiently compute them using Fourier transforms. It is shown how to apply complex coefficient splittings to this nonlinear equation and numerical results corroborate the findings. In the semiclassical limit, the evolution operator becomes highly oscillatory and standard splitting methods suffer from exponentially increasing complexity when raising the order of the method. Algorithms with only quadratic order-dependence of the computational cost are found using the Zassenhaus algorithm. In contrast to classical splittings, special commutators are allowed to appear in the exponents. By construction, they are rapidly decreasing in size with the semiclassical parameter and can be exponentiated using only a few Lanczos iterations. For completeness, an alternative technique based on Hagedorn wavepackets is revisited and interpreted in the light of Magnus expansions and minor improvements are suggested. In the presence of explicit time-dependencies in the semiclassical Hamiltonian, the Zassenhaus algorithm requires a special initiation step. Distinguishing the case of smooth and fast frequencies, it is shown how to adapt the mechanism to obtain an efficiently computable decomposition of an effective Hamiltonian that has been obtained after Magnus expansion, without having to resolve the oscillations by taking a prohibitively small time-step. Chapter 5 considers the Schrödinger eigenvalue problem which can be formulated as an initial value problem after a Wick-rotating the Schrödinger equation to imaginary time. The elliptic nature of the evolution operator restricts standard splittings to low order, ¿ < 3, because of the unavoidable appearance of negative fractional timesteps that correspond to the ill-posed integration backwards in time. The inclusion of modified potentials lifts the order barrier up to ¿ < 5. Both restrictions can be circumvented using complex fractional time-steps with positive real part and sixthorder methods optimized for near-integrable Hamiltonians are presented. Conclusions and pointers to further research are detailed in Chapter 6, with a special focus on optimal quantum control.Bader, PK. (2014). Geometric Integrators for Schrödinger Equations [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/38716TESISPremios Extraordinarios de tesis doctorale

(Invited) Two-color soliton meta-atoms and molecules

We present a detailed overview of the physics of two-color soliton molecules in nonlinear waveguides, i.e. bound states of localized optical pulses which are held together due to an incoherent interaction mechanism. The mutual confinement, or trapping, of the subpulses, which leads to a stable propagation of the pulse compound, is enabled by the nonlinear Kerr effect. Special attention is paid to the description of the binding mechanism in terms of attractive potential wells, induced by the refractive index changes of the subpulses, exerted on one another through cross-phase modulation. Specifically, we discuss nonlinear-photonics meta atoms, given by pulse compounds consisting of a strong trapping pulse and a weak trapped pulse, for which trapped states of low intensity are determined by a Schrödinger-type eigenproblem. We discuss the rich dynamical behavior of such meta-atoms, demonstrating that an increase of the group-velocity mismatch of both subpulses leads to an ionization-like trapping-to-escape transition. We further demonstrate that if both constituent pulses are of similar amplitude, molecule-like bound-states are formed. We show that -periodic amplitude variations permit a coupling of these pulse compound to dispersive waves, resulting in the resonant emission of Kushi-comb-like multi-frequency radiation