Rasyonel Üslü Cebirsel ve Üstel Eşleme Yaklaşımı ile Thomas-Fermi Denklemi için İkinci Derece Doğruluklu Sonlu Farklar Yöntemi

Many problems based on natural sciences need to be solved by the scientists and engineers to serve the humanity. One of the well-known model in atomic universe is condensed into an equation, and called the Thomas-Fermi equation. It is a second order differential equation, which describes charge distributions of heavy, neutral atoms. No exact analytical solution has been found for the equation yet. In fact, strong nonlinearity, singular character and unbounded interval of the problem causes great difficulty to obtain an approximate numerical solution as well. In this paper, the Thomas-Fermi equation is solved using a second order finite difference method along with application of quasi-linearization method. Semi-infinite interval of the problem is converted into [0, 1) using two different coordinate transformations, namely algebraic and exponential mapping. Numerical order of accuracy has been checked using systematic mesh refinements and comparing the calculated initial slope y'(0). Calculated results for initial slope is found in good agreement with the results available in the literature. Lastly, accuracy is improved by the application of the Richardson extrapolation.