On the computation of the eigenproblems of hydrogen and helium in strong magnetic and electric fields with the sparse grid combination technique (Q5928914)

The authors propose a numerical method for Schrödinger eigenvalue problems for the helium atom in electric and magnetic fields. The high dimensionality (6 spatial dimensions) is dealt with by the use of a family of sparse grids. A grid family contains grids which are fine in only one coordinate direction and very coarse in the others, and it also contains gradations between such grids. A preconditioned conjugate gradient method is used on each grid, and a weighted average is used as the computed result. The authors point out that care must be taken in computing this average, becuase the ordering of the eigenvalues may not be consistent on the grids in the family. The method is effective if mixed derivatives are smooth.