A minimisation approach for computing the ground state of Gross–Pitaevskii systems

In this paper, we present a minimisation method for computing the ground state of systems of coupled Gross–Pitaevskii equations. Our approach relies on a spectral decomposition of the solution into Hermite basis functions. Inserting the spectral representation into the energy functional yields a constrained nonlinear minimisation problem for the coefficients. For its numerical solution, we employ a Newton-like method with an approximate line-search strategy. We analyse this method and prove global convergence. Appropriate starting values for the minimisation process are determined by a standard continuation strategy. Numerical examples with two- and three-component two-dimensional condensates are included. These experiments demonstrate the reliability of our method and nicely illustrate the effect of phase segregation.