Stationary Schr\"odinger equation in the semi-classical limit: WKB-based scheme coupled to a turning point

TL;DR

This paper develops a hybrid analytical-numerical WKB-based scheme for efficiently solving 1D stationary Schrödinger equations near turning points in the semi-classical limit, with proven error bounds and numerical validation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid method combining analytical solutions at turning points with WKB-marching away from them, including error analysis and grid size limitations.

Findings

Hybrid scheme is asymptotically correct when phase is explicitly computed.

Grid size constraint is h=O(ε^{7/12}) with quadrature-based phase.

Method effectively handles wave function blow-up at turning points.

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the efficient numerical treatment of 1D stationary Schr\"odinger equations in the semi-classical limit when including a turning point of first order. For the considered scattering problems we show that the wave function asymptotically blows up at the turning point as the scaled Planck constant $\varepsilon\to0$, 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.\ $\varepsilon$. If the phase is obtained with a quadrature rule of, e.g., order 4, then the spatial grid size has the limitation $h={\cal O}(\varepsilon^{7/12})$ which is slightly worse than the $h={\cal O}(\varepsilon^{1/2})$ restriction in the case without a turning point.