On the solution of the Thomas-Fermi equation by differential quadrature (Q761780)

This paper presents a method of finding approximate solutions to the Thomas-Fermi equation \(d^ 2f/dx^ 2=f^{3/2}/x^{1/2}\) with \(f=1\) at \(x=0\) and \(f=0\) as \(x\to \infty\). The essential approximation used is that for any linear operator L \(L(f(x_ i))\simeq \sum^{N}_{j=1}W_{ij}f(x_ j),\) \(i=1,2,...,N\) where \(x_ i\) are sample points and \(W_{ij}\) are chosen so that the approximation is exact for \(f(x)=x^ k\), \(k=0,1...(N-1)\). Taking L to be the second derivative this leads to a set of nonlinear equations for the values of the solution at the sample points. These are solved using a Newton- Raphson method.