Monotone methods for the Thomas-Fermi equation

Abstract

The boundary-value problem for the ionized atom case of the Thomas-Fermi equation is transformed to a certain convex nonlinear boundary-value problem. Two iterative procedures, previously developed for such problems, are constructed for the ionized atom problem. A comparative analysis of the efficiency of the iteration schemes is presented. The existence and uniqueness of a solution is established and the solution is shown to have monotonic dependence on the boundary conditions. Numerical bounds are obtained for a specific problem.