ISSN 1064-5624, Doklady Mathematics, 2012, Vol. 86, No. 3, pp. 750–755. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2012. Original Russian Text © A.A. Zlotnik, I.A. Zlotnik, 2012, published in Doklady Akademii Nauk, 2012, Vol. 447, No. 2, pp. 130–135. 750 The Schrödinger equation plays an important role in quantum mechanics, nuclear and wave physics, nanotechnologies, other areas. Frequently, it has to be solved in unbounded domains. For this purpose, numerous approaches are available that make use of approximate transparent boundary conditions (TBCs) on artificial boundaries (see the review in [1]). Among the best TBCs are discrete ones that exhibit no reflec- tion from the artificial boundaries, provide stable computations, and have a mathematically rigorous foundation. Such TBCs were developed and analyzed, in particular, in [2–9]. At the same time, no discrete TBCs for the finite element method (FEM) have been developed. The present paper fills this gap. Consider a generalized formulation of the initial– boundary value problem for the nonstationary Schrödinger equation with variable coefficients on the half-line + = (0, ) with a zero Dirichlet boundary condition at x = 0: find a complex-valued function ψ∈ C( ; ( + )) with D t ψ C( ; L 2 ( + )) that, for all t > 0, satisfies the integral identity (1) and the initial condition ψ| t =0 = ψ 0 (x) on + . Here, i is the imaginary unit; = const > 0; and we use the standard complex Lebesgue and Sobolev spaces, the subspace (I) := {w H 1 (I); w(0) = 0}, and the Her- mitian sesquilinear form + H D 1 + i ρ D t ψ · t , ( , ( ) L 2 + ( ) + ψ · t , ( , ( ) = for all ϕ H D 1 + ( ) H D 1 for the interval I = + (and, below, for I = Ω = (0, X)). The coefficients ρ, B, V L ( + ) are real-valued and satisfy ρ(x) > 0 and B(x) > 0, while D t = and D = . Additionally, assume that, for some X 0 > 0, (2) We introduce a grid 0 = x 0 < x 1 < … < x J = X < … on and the elements Δ j := [x j –1 , x j ] of length h j := x j x j –1 , j 1. Assume that x J –1 X 0 and h j = h for j J. Let n ( ) be the space of polynomials with complex (real) coefficients on of degree at most n, where n 1. Let (and ) denote the spaces of continuous piecewise polynomial functions ϕ on (and ) such that ϕ(0) = 0 and for 1 j J (and j 1). We introduce a uniform grid with nodes t m = mτ, where m 0 and τ > 0. Define := {t m . Let := Y m –1 , and Y := , Y := . Let H( ) denote the space of functions Φ: , Φ 0 =0 with the inner product (Φ, Y := (Y m )*τ, where z* is the complex conjugate of z . I w ϕ , ( ) := BDw Dϕ , ( ) L 2 I () Vw ϕ , ( ) L 2 I () + ρ B t --- x ---- ρ x () ρ , Bx () B 0 , Vx () > V , = = = ψ 0 x () 0 on X 0 , ( ) . = + n H h n () H h , n () Ω + ϕ Δ j n Δ j ω τ ωM τ } m 0 = M Y m t Y Y τ ---------- s t Y Y + 2 ---------- ωM τ ωM τ ) ω M τ Φ m m 1 = M Finite Element Method with Discrete Transparent Boundary Conditions for the One-Dimensional Nonstationary Schrödinger Equation A. A. Zlotnik a, b and I. A. Zlotnik b Presented by Academician B.N. Chetverushkin April 23, 2012 Received April 25, 2012 DOI: 10.1134/S1064562412060130 a Department of Higher Mathematics, Faculty of Economics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Myasnitskaya ul. 20, Moscow, 101000 Russia b Department of Mathematical Modeling, Moscow Power Engineering Institute (Technical University), Krasnokazarmennaya ul. 14, Moscow, 111250 Russia e-mail: azlotnik2007@mail.ru, ilya.zlotnik@gmail.com MATHEMATICS