Multi-symplectic variational integrators for nonlinear Schrödinger equations with variable coefficients

In this paper, we propose a variational integrator for nonlinear Schrödinger equations with variable coefficients. It is shown that our variational integrator is naturally multi-symplectic. The discrete multi-symplectic structure of the integrator is presented by a multi-symplectic form formula that can be derived from the discrete Lagrangian boundary function. As two examples of nonlinear Schrödinger equations with variable coefficients, cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equations and Gross-Pitaevskii equations are extensively studied by the proposed integrator. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that the integrator is capable of preserving the mass, momentum, and energy conservation during time evolutions. Convergence tests are presented to verify that our integrator has second-order accuracy both in time and space.