[Help-gsl] multidimensional minimization

[Gideon Simpson]

I'm studying a problem where I have a potential V(x,y), a function of two 
variables, and I know that it is globally bounded from below and has three 
local minima.  What I would like to do is identify the basins of attraction for 
each of the three minima.  If I use a naive, crude, steepest descent algorithm, 
not the one in library, but a true:

xn = xn-1 - dt grad V(xn-1)

I get what I'm after, though it takes more iterations than it should.  When I 
try to use the algorithms in the library, my basins are inconsistent.  I think 
this has to do with the adaptive selection of the step size, but I'm not 
entirely sure on how to control it.  Is there a way to set a max step size in 
the algorithms?

-gideon