A Canonical Gauge for Computing of Eigenpairs of the Magnetic Schr\"odinger Operator

Abstract

We consider the eigenvalue problem for the magnetic Schr\"odinger operator and take advantage of a property called gauge invariance to transform the given problem into an equivalent problem that is more amenable to numerical approximation. More specifically, we propose a canonical magnetic gauge that can be computed by solving a Poisson problem, that yields a new operator having the same spectrum but eigenvectors that are less oscillatory. Extensive numerical tests demonstrate that accurate computation of eigenpairs can be done more efficiently and stably with the canonical magnetic gauge.