Analysis of a Galerkin approach applied to a system of coupled Schrödinger equations (Q344282)

The coupled constant coefficient Schrödinger type \(\left(2\times2\right)\)-block matrix operator \[ S_{B}=\partial_{t}-\left(A+B\right) \] in one space dimension with \(B\) an \(L^{2}\)-skew-selfadjoint numerical matrix operator, and \(A\) block-diagonal with skew-selfadjoint diagonal entries \(A_{\pm}=\pm\delta\partial_{x}+\mathrm{i}K\partial_{x}^{2}\) assuming periodicity boundary conditions for \(\partial_{x}\), turns into a coupled non-linear system by replacing in \(B\) the matrix entries \(B\) by \(\sigma_{\pm}+a_{\pm}\left|u\right|^{2}+b_{\pm}\left|v\right|^{2}\) on the diagonal and the upper right off-diagonal entry by \(e v\overline{u}\) with \(e\) real such that the resulting matrix \(B(U)\) is point-wise still skew-symmetric, to construct a cubic non-linear coupling term \(F\left(U\right)=B(U)U\), \(u,v\) denoting the components of \(U\). The associated non-linear initial value problem is discussed as a perturbation of the linear case \(F=0\) via a linear semigroup construction and proving Lipschitz continuity of \(F\) in sufficiently high order Sobolev spaces. The existence and uniqueness result is obtained. Using Galerkin type spatial Fourier series approximations a semi-discrete approximation scheme is first discussed. On this basis then a full discretization is considered. Error estimates and convergence rates are obtained.