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Symplectic integration; hamiltonian systems

There exist several standard numerical methods for integrating ordinary differential equations. However, if one is interested in integration of Hamiltonian systems, these methods can lead to wrong results. This is due to the fact that these methods do not explicitly preserve the so-called ‘symplectic condition’ (that needs to be satisfied for Hamiltonian systems) at every integration step. In this paper, we look at various methods for integration that preserve the symplectic condition.

Govindan Rangarajan¹

1. Department of Mathematics and Centre for Theoretical Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560 012, India

Published

January 1997