Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
The evaluation of the eigenvalues and corresponding solutions of a Schrödinger equation is an ever-present problem in atomic and nuclear physics. For the numerical evaluation of the Schrödinger equation for a particle in a central potential, a useful corrector formula was derived by Douglas and Ridley ((5)) some years ago. Given a first estimate of the eigenvalue, this formula enables one to obtain a better estimate using any standard integration procedure for the differential equation. In a particular example, it was found ((5)) that it was necessary to start with an initial value which was accurate to about 10% in order that the procedure should converge to the desired eigenvalue, and that few iterations were required to obtain the eigenvalue with good precision.