Statistics – Computation
Scientific paper
Sep 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998dda....30.0702n&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #30, #07.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1143
Statistics
Computation
Scientific paper
Symplectic mapping techniques have become very popular among celestial mechanicians and molecular dynamicists. The word "symplectic" was coined by Hermann Weyl (1939), exploiting the Greek root for a word meaning "complex," to describe a Lie group with special geometric properties. A symplectic integration method is one whose time-derivative satisfies Hamilton's equations of motion (Goldstein, 1980). When due care is paid to the standard computational triad of consistency, accuracy, and stability, a numerical method that is also symplectic offers some potential advantages. Varadarajan (1974) at UCLA was the first to formally explore, for a very restrictive class of problems, the geometric implications of symplectic splittings through the use of Lie series and group representations. Over the years, however, a "mythology" has emerged regarding the nature of symplectic mappings and what features are preserved. Some of these myths have already been shattered by the computational mathematics community. These results, together with new ones we present here for the first time, show where important pitfalls and misconceptions reside. These misconceptions include that: (a) symplectic maps preserve conserved quantities like the energy; (b) symplectic maps are equivalent to the exact computation of the trajectory of a nearby, time-independent Hamiltonian; (c) complicated splitting methods (i.e., "maps in composition") are not symplectic; (d) symplectic maps preserve the geometry associated with separatrices and homoclinic points; and (e) symplectic maps possess artificial resonances at triple and quadruple frequencies. We verify, nevertheless, that using symplectic methods together with traditional safeguards, e.g. convergence and scaling checks using reduced step sizes for integration schemes of sufficient order, can provide an important exploratory and development tool for Solar System applications.
Hyman James M.
Newman William I.
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