Stationary Schrödinger equation in the semi-classical limit: WKB-based scheme coupled to a turning point

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the efficient numerical treatment of 1D stationary Schrödinger equations in the semi-classical limit when including a turning point of first order. As such it is an extension of the paper [3], where turning points still had to be excluded. For the considered scattering problems we show that the wave function asymptotically blows up at the turning point as the scaled Planck constant $$\varepsilon \rightarrow 0$$ε→0, which is a key challenge for the analysis. Assuming that the given potential is linear or quadratic in a small neighborhood of the turning point, the problem is analytically solvable on that subinterval in terms of Airy or parabolic cylinder functions, respectively. Away from the turning point, the analytical solution is coupled to a numerical solution that is based on a WKB-marching method—using a coarse grid even for highly oscillatory solutions. We provide an error analysis for the hybrid analytic-numerical problem up to the turning point (where the solution is asymptotically unbounded) and illustrate it in numerical experiments: if the phase of the problem is explicitly computable, the hybrid scheme is asymptotically correct w.r.t. $$\varepsilon $$ε. If the phase is obtained with a quadrature rule of, e.g., order 4, then the spatial grid size has the limitation $$h=\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon ^{7/12})$$h=O(ε7/12) which is slightly worse than the $$h=\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon ^{1/2})$$h=O(ε1/2) restriction in the case without a turning point.