Convergence of a three-dimensional quantum lattice Boltzmann scheme towards solutions of the Dirac equation

D. Lapitski & P. J. Dellar (2011) Convergence of a three-dimensional quantum lattice Boltzmann scheme towards solutions of the Dirac equation (in press) Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A

Preprint available ( DSFD2010_Dirac.pdf 330K)


Abstract

We investigate the convergence properties of a three-dimensional quantum lattice Boltzmann scheme for the Dirac equation.  These schemes were constructed as discretisations of the Dirac equation based on operator splitting, but their output has previously only been compared against solutions of the Schrödinger equation.  The Schrödinger equation arises as the non-relativistic limit of the Dirac equation, describing solutions that vary slowly compared to the Compton frequency. We demonstrate first-order convergence towards solutions of the Dirac equation obtained by an independent numerical method based on fast Fourier transforms and matrix
 exponentiation.