Progressive approximation of bound states by finite series of square-integrable functions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a finite basis approach using orthogonal polynomials to approximate bound states in quantum systems, providing a systematic way to improve accuracy by increasing basis size.

Contribution

It develops a finite series method with orthogonal polynomials for solving the Schrödinger equation, enabling accurate bound state approximations with a finite basis set.

Findings

Finite series solutions support a tridiagonal matrix representation.

Orthogonal polynomials encode all physical information about the system.

Approximation accuracy improves with larger basis size.

Abstract

We use the "tridiagonal representation approach" to solve the time-independent Schr\"odinger equation for bound states in a basis set of finite size. We obtain two classes of solutions written as finite series of square integrable functions that support a tridiagonal matrix representation of the wave operator. The differential wave equation becomes an algebraic three-term recursion relation for the expansion coefficients of the series, which is solved in terms of finite polynomials in the energy and/or potential parameters. These orthogonal polynomials contain all physical information about the system. The basis elements in configuration space are written in terms of either the Romanovski-Bessel polynomial or the Romanovski-Jacobi polynomial. The maximum degree of both polynomials is limited by the polynomial parameter(s). This makes the size of the basis set finite but sufficient to give a very good approximation of the bound states wavefunctions that improves with an increase in the basis size.