Unconditional stability and convergence of Crank-Nicolson Galerkin FEMs for a nonlinear Schrödinger-Helmholtz system (Q1646646)

Two linearized Crank-Nicolson Galerkin finite element methods (FEM) are presented for the complex nonlinear Schrödinger equations defined in a bounded and convex polygon or polyhedron in two and three dimensions, respectively. Homogeneous boundary conditions are considered and for simplification the Schrödinger-Helmholtz system is analyzed. Spatial and temporal error analyses are performed. Unconditionally optimal \(L^2\) error estimates are proven in both two and three space dimensions based on the uniform boundedness of the numerical solution in the \(L^\infty\) norm. A time-discrete system is introduced using a splitting technique. Finally, three numerical examples are presented, which illustrate the theoretical convergence and stability results in 2d and 3d. The software FreeFem++ is used with uniform triangular grids on square and cubic domains.