Efficient numerical method for simulating static and dynamic properties of superfluid helium

Density functional theory (DFT) offers computationally affordable way of describing static and dynamic properties of superfluid 4He. In general, the DFT models yield single particle-like Schrodinger equations with a nonlinear potential term that accounts for all the many-body interactions. The resulting equations can be solved for small amplitude plane wave excitations in the bulk whereas fully numerical solution must be sought in more complicated cases. In this paper we propose a numerical method that can be used in solving the time-dependent nonlinear Schrodinger equation in both real and imaginary times. The method is based on operator splitting technique where each component operator is…