A two-step symmetric method for charged-particle dynamics in a normal or strong magnetic field

Abstract

The study of the long time conservation for numerical methods poses interesting and challenging questions from the point of view of geometric integration. In this paper, we analyze the long time energy and magnetic moment conservations of two-step symmetric methods for charged-particle dynamics. A two-step symmetric method is proposed and its long time behaviour is shown not only in a normal magnetic field but also in a strong magnetic field. The approaches to dealing with these two cases are based on the backward error analysis and modulated Fourier expansion, respectively. It is obtained from the analysis that the method has better long time conservations than the variational method which was researched recently in the literature.