Weizhu Bao

Computing the Ground State Solution of Bose--Einstein Condensates by a Normalized Gradient Flow

In this paper, we present a continuous normalized gradient flow (CNGF) and prove its energy diminishing property, which provides a mathematical justification of the imaginary time method used in the physics literature to compute the ground state solution of Bose--Einstein condensates (BEC). We also investigate the energy diminishing property for the discretization of the CNGF. Two numerical methods are proposed for such discretizations: one is the backward Euler centered finite difference (BEFD) method, the other is an explicit time-splitting sine-spectral (TSSP) method. Energy diminishing for BEFD and TSSP for the linear case and monotonicity for BEFD for both linear and nonlinear cases are proven. Comparison between the two methods and existing methods, e.g., Crank--Nicolson finite difference (CNFD) or forward Euler finite difference (FEFD), shows that BEFD and TSSP are much better in terms of preserving the energy diminishing property of the CNGF. Numerical results in one, two, and three dimensions with magnetic trap confinement potential, as well as a potential of a stirrer corresponding to a far-blue detuned Gaussian laser beam, are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of BEFD and TSSP methods. Furthermore we observe that the CNGF and its BEFD discretization can also be applied directly to compute the first excited state solution in BEC when the initial data is chosen as an odd function.

Mathematical theory and numerical methods for Bose-Einstein condensation

The achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in ultracold vapors of alkali atoms has given enormous impulse to the theoretical and experimental study of dilute atomic gases in condensed quantum states inside magnetic traps and optical lattices. This article offers a short survey on mathematical models and theories as well as numerical methods for BEC based on the mean field theory. We start with the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) in three dimensions (3D) for modeling one-component BEC of the weakly interacting bosons, scale it to obtain a three-parameter model and show how to reduce it to two dimensions (2D) and one dimension (1D) GPEs in certain limiting regimes. Mathematical theories and numerical methods for ground states and dynamics of BEC are provided. Extensions to GPE with an angular momentum rotation term for a rotating BEC, to GPE with long-range anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction for a dipolar BEC and to coupled GPEs for spin-orbit coupled BECs are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn and future research perspectives are discussed.

Numerical Study of Time-Splitting Spectral Discretizations of Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations in the Semiclassical Regimes

An electrical meter has light-emissive display elements and a meter circuit featuring electrically floating input terminals relative to device ground, and offers a potentially significant cost advantage compared to available alternatives in low-accuracy measuring applications. A series string of the light-emissive display elements are physically arranged along a line in order of increasing turn-on current threshold of each element so that they are successively turned on along the line with increasing current to be measured. A control circuit included in the series string has first and second semiconductively-complementary active semiconductor devices, such as an NPN and PNP transistor, each with base, emitter, and collector. The input-sensing conductor, such as a base, of each active semiconductor is a respective floating input of the meter. The semiconductors have at least two output control conductors, such as collector and emitter, two corresponding control conductors being wired together (as emitter to emitter) and the other two being wired into the series string. The light-emitting elements are suitably semiconductor diodes (LEDs), incandescent bulbs, neon bulbs, or other devices, with resistive shunting where necessary. Two such meter circuits are wired back-to-back with their light-emissive elements arranged physically back-to-back to form an uncomplicated galvanometer device for measuring electrical currents of either positive or negative polarity.

Ground States and Dynamics of Multicomponent Bose--Einstein Condensates

We study numerically the time-independent vector Gross--Pitaevskii equations (VGPEs) for ground states and time-dependent VGPEs with (or without) an external driven field for dynamics describing a multicomponent Bose--Einstein condensate (BEC) at zero or a very low temperature. In preparation for the numerics, we scale the three-dimensional (3d) VGPEs, approximately reduce it to lower dimensions, present a continuous normalized gradient flow (CNGF) to compute ground states of multicomponent BEC, prove energy diminishing of the CNGF, which provides a mathematical justification, and discretize it by the backward Euler finite difference (BEFD), which is monotone in linear and nonlinear cases and preserves energy diminishing property in the linear case. Then we use a time-splitting sine-spectral (TSSP) method to discretize the time-dependent VGPEs with an external driven field for computing dynamics of multicomponent BEC. The merits of the TSSP method for VGPEs are that it is explicit, unconditionally stable,...

Computational methods for the dynamics of the nonlinear Schrödinger/Gross-Pitaevskii equations

Abstract In this paper, we begin with the nonlinear Schrodinger/Gross–Pitaevskii equation (NLSE/GPE) for modeling Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) and nonlinear optics as well as other applications, and discuss their dynamical properties ranging from time reversible, time transverse invariant, mass and energy conservation, and dispersion relation to soliton solutions. Then, we review and compare different numerical methods for solving the NLSE/GPE including finite difference time domain methods and time-splitting spectral method, and discuss different absorbing boundary conditions. In addition, these numerical methods are extended to the NLSE/GPE with damping terms and/or an angular momentum rotation term as well as coupled NLSEs/GPEs. Finally, applications to simulate a quantized vortex lattice dynamics in a rotating BEC are reported.

A Fourth-Order Time-Splitting Laguerre--Hermite Pseudospectral Method for Bose--Einstein Condensates

A fourth-order time-splitting Laguerre--Hermite pseudospectral method is introduced for Bose--Einstein condensates (BECs) in three dimensions with cylindrical symmetry. The method is explicit, time reversible, and time transverse invariant. It conserves the position density and is spectral accurate in space and fourth-order accurate in time. Moreover, the new method has two other important advantages: (i) it reduces a three-dimensional (3-D) problem with cylindrical symmetry to an effective two-dimensional (2-D) problem; (ii) it solves the problem in the whole space instead of in a truncated artificial computational domain. The method is applied to vector Gross--Pitaevskii equations (VGPEs) for multicomponent BECs. Extensive numerical tests are presented for the one-dimensional (1-D) GPE, the 2-D GPE with radial symmetry, the 3-D GPE with cylindrical symmetry, as well as 3-D VGPEs for two-component BECs, to show the efficiency and accuracy of the new numerical method.

Ground-state solution of Bose--Einstein condensate by directly minimizing the energy functional

In this paper, we propose a new numerical method to compute the ground-state solution of trapped interacting Bose-Einstein condensation at zero or very low temperature by directly minimizing the energy functional via finite element approximation. As preparatory steps we begin with the 3d Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE), scale it to get a three-parameter model and show how to reduce it to 2d and 1d GPEs. The ground-state solution is formulated by minimizing the energy functional under a constraint, which is discretized by the finite element method. The finite element approximation for 1d, 2d with radial symmetry and 3d with spherical symmetry and cylindrical symmetry are presented in detail and approximate ground-state solutions, which are used as initial guess in our practical numerical computation of the minimization problem, of the GPE in two extreme regimes: very weak interactions and strong repulsive interactions are provided. Numerical results in 1d, 2d with radial symmetry and 3d with spherical symmetry and cylindrical symmetry for atoms ranging up to millions in the condensation are reported to demonstrate the novel numerical method. Furthermore, comparisons between the ground-state solutions and their Thomas-Fermi approximations are also reported. Extension of the numerical method to compute the excited states of GPE is also presented.

An Explicit Unconditionally Stable Numerical Method for Solving Damped Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations with a Focusing Nonlinearity

This paper introduces an extension of the time-splitting sine-spectral (TSSP) method for solving damped focusing nonlinear Schrodinger equations (NLSs). The method is explicit, unconditionally stable, and time transversal invariant. Moreover, it preserves the exact decay rate for the normalization of the wave function if linear damping terms are added to the NLS. Extensive numerical tests are presented for cubic focusing NLSs in two dimensions with a linear, cubic, or quintic damping term. Our numerical results show that quintic or cubic damping always arrests blowup, while linear damping can arrest blowup only when the damping parameter

Efficient and spectrally accurate numerical methods for computing ground and first excited states in Bose-Einstein condensates

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Uniform Error Estimates of Finite Difference Methods for the Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation with Wave Operator

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