Improved Recursive Computation of Clebsch-Gordan Coefficients

Abstract

Fast, accurate, and stable computation of the Clebsch-Gordan (C-G) coefficients is always desirable, for example, in light scattering simulations, the translation of the multipole fields, quantum physics and chemistry. Current recursive methods for computing the C-G coefficients are often unstable for large quantum numbers due to numerical overflow or underflow. In this paper, we present an improved method, the so-called sign-exponent recurrence, for the recursive computation of C-G coefficients. The result shows that the proposed method can significantly improve the stability of the computation without losing its efficiency, producing accurate values for the C-G coefficients even with very large quantum numbers.