Let $H = \triangle + V(x) : \mathbb{R}^2 \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^2$. I am interested in domain decomposition for an eigenproblem involving $H$.

The lowest 1000 eigenfunctions of $H$,  $ \psi_i $, can be partitioned using a region, $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^2$, such that each $\psi_i$ localizes either inside of $\Omega$ or outside of $\Omega$.

$\Omega$ is not a subspace of $\mathbb{R}^2$ as it may be an oddly shaped region.

Label the inner eigenfunctions $\psi_i^{in}$ and the outer ones $\psi_i^{out}$. There's only about 10 $\psi_i^{in}$s. Given $\Omega$, my goal is to efficiently compute the $\psi_i^{in}$.

One way to find the $\psi_i^{in}$ would be to discretize, compute all 1000 $\psi_i$s, and then partition. This is what I do now (5-point stencil for $\triangle$ on a $10^3 \times 10^3$ grid). The problem is that this requires diagonalizing over a 1000 dimensional space in order to get 10 eigenvectors. It seems like there would be a cheaper way to compute the $\psi_i^{in}$.

**Edit:** I reposted to http://scicomp.stackexchange.com/questions/1396/efficiently-computing-a-few-localized-eigenvectors#comment2200_1396 and hopefully clarified the problem statement.