Comparision of direct and Fourier space techniques in time-dependent density functional theory

Several techniques have appeared in the literatuare to solve the equations of time-dependent density functional theory. We compare the efficiency of different methods based on mesh representations of the wave function (direct and Fourier space), taking as a test case the calculation of the surface plasmon in the cluster Na_8. For smaller systems, the methods have comparable efficiency. For large systems the direct time method has a decided advantage in computer storage requirements. It is also more economical on arithmetic operations, but is not as suited for parallel computing as the methods based on a frequency representation.