On the convergence of the Crank-Nicolson method for the logarithmic Schrödinger equation

Abstract

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>We consider an initial and Dirichlet boundary value problem for a logarithmic Schrödinger equation over a two dimensional rectangular domain. We construct approximations of the solution to the problem using a standard second order finite difference method for space discretization and the Crank-Nicolson method for time discretization, with or without regularizing the logarithmic term. We develop a convergence analysis yielding a new almost second order a priori error estimates in the discrete <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ L_t^{\infty}(L_x^2) $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> norm, and we show results from numerical experiments exposing the efficiency of the method proposed. It is the first time in the literature where an error estimate for a numerical method applied to the logarithmic Schrödinger equation is provided, without regularizing its nonlinear term.</p>