Adjustment of Force–Gradient Operator in Symplectic Methods

Many force–gradient explicit symplectic integration algorithms have been designed for the Hamiltonian H=T(p)+V(q) with kinetic energy T(p)=p2/2 in the existing references. When a force–gradient operator is appropriately adjusted as a new operator, it is still suitable for a class of Hamiltonian problems H=K(p,q)+V(q) with integrable part K(p,q)=∑i=1n∑j=1naijpipj+∑i=1nbipi, where aij=aij(q) and bi=bi(q) are functions of coordinates q. The newly adjusted operator is not a force–gradient operator but is similar to the momentum-version operator associated to the potential V. The newly extended (or adjusted) algorithms are no longer solvers of the original Hamiltonian, but are solvers of slightly modified Hamiltonians. They are explicit symplectic integrators with symmetry or time reversibility. Numerical tests show that the standard symplectic integrators without the new operator are generally poorer than the corresponding extended methods with the new operator in computational accuracies and efficiencies. The optimized methods have better accuracies than the corresponding non-optimized counterparts. Among the tested symplectic methods, the two extended optimized seven-stage fourth-order methods of Omelyan, Mryglod and Folk exhibit the best numerical performance. As a result, one of the two optimized algorithms is used to study the orbital dynamical features of a modified Hénon–Heiles system and a spring pendulum. These extended integrators allow for integrations in Hamiltonian problems, such as the spiral structure in self-consistent models of rotating galaxies and the spiral arms in galaxies.

Symplectic P-stable additive Runge—Kutta methods

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Classical symplectic partitioned Runge–Kutta methods can be obtained from a variational formulation where all the terms in the discrete Lagrangian are treated with the same quadrature formula. We construct a family of symplectic methods allowing the use of different quadrature formulas (primary and secondary) for different terms of the Lagrangian. In particular, we study a family of methods using Lobatto quadrature (with corresponding Lobatto IIIA-B symplectic pair) as a primary method and Gauss–Legendre quadrature as a secondary method. The methods have the same implicitness as the underlying Lobatto IIIA-B pair, and, in addition, they are <i>P-stable</i>, therefore suitable for application to highly oscillatory problems.</p>

REBOUNDx: a library for adding conservative and dissipative forces to otherwise symplectic N-body integrations

ABSTRACT Symplectic methods, in particular the Wisdom–Holman map, have revolutionized our ability to model the long-term, conservative dynamics of planetary systems. However, many astrophysically important effects are dissipative. The consequences of incorporating such forces into otherwise symplectic schemes are not always clear. We show that moving to a general framework of non-commutative operators (dissipative or not) clarifies many of these questions, and that several important properties of symplectic schemes carry over to the general case. In particular, we show that explicit splitting schemes generically exploit symmetries in the applied external forces, which often strongly suppress integration errors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that so-called ‘symplectic correctors’ (which reduce energy errors by orders of magnitude at fixed computational cost) apply equally well to weakly dissipative systems and can thus be more generally thought of as ‘weak splitting correctors’. Finally, we show that previously advocated approaches of incorporating additional forces into symplectic methods work well for dissipative forces, but give qualitatively wrong answers for conservative but velocity-dependent forces like post-Newtonian corrections. We release REBOUNDx, an open-source C library for incorporating additional effects into REBOUNDN-body integrations, together with a convenient python wrapper. All effects are machine independent and we provide a binary format that interfaces with the SimulationArchive class in REBOUND to enable the sharing and reproducibility of results. Users can add effects from a list of pre-implemented astrophysical forces, or contribute new ones.

High-order symplectic integrators for planetary dynamics and their implementation in rebound

ABSTRACT Direct N-body simulations and symplectic integrators are effective tools to study the long-term evolution of planetary systems. The Wisdom–Holman (WH) integrator in particular has been used extensively in planetary dynamics as it allows for large time-steps at good accuracy. One can extend the WH method to achieve even higher accuracy using several different approaches. In this paper, we survey integrators developed by Wisdom et al., Laskar & Robutel, and Blanes et al. Since some of these methods are harder to implement and not as readily available to astronomers compared to the standard WH method, they are not used as often. This is somewhat unfortunate given that in typical simulations it is possible to improve the accuracy by up to six orders of magnitude (!) compared to the standard WH method without the need for any additional force evaluations. To change this, we implement a variety of high-order symplectic methods in the freely available N-body integrator rebound. In this paper, we catalogue these methods, discuss their differences, describe their error scalings, and benchmark their speed using our implementations.