Finite element method and isogeometric analysis in electronic structure calculations: convergence study

Abstract

We compare convergence of isogeometric analysis (IGA), a spline modification of finite element method (FEM), with FEM in the context of our real space code for ab-initio electronic structure calculations of non-periodic systems. The convergence is studied on simple sub-problems that appear within the density functional theory approximation to the Schrödinger equation: the Poisson problem and the generalized eigenvalue problem. We also outline the complete iterative algorithm seeking a fixed point of the charge density of a system of atoms or molecules, and study IGA/FEM convergence on a benchmark problem of nitrogen atom.