A level set method for the semiclassical limit of the Schrödinger equation with discontinuous potentials (Q2638261)

The authors propose a level set method for the semiclassical limit of the Schrödinger equation with discontinuous potentials that correspond to potential barriers which partially transmit and reflect waves. This method is combined with an interface condition for the Liouville equation to account for partial transmissions and reflections with higher numerical accuracy. To avoid the hard direct discretization of the Dirac delta functions which appear in the initial data, the initial data is decomposed into finite sums of smooth functions that remain smooth in finite time along the phase flow, and hence can be solved much more easily by means of conventional high order discretization schemes. The solutions involving partial transmissions and reflections are decomposed into a finite sum of solutions to solve problems involving only complete transmissions and those involving only complete reflections. For more general problems, a reinitialization technique is introduced so that waves coming from multiple transmissions and reflections can be combined seamlessly as new initial value problems by rewriting the sum of several delta functions as one delta function with a suitable weight for easy numerical implementation. The new numerical method is validated in one and two dimensions.