Abstract
As the tree of numerical methods used to solve ordinary differential equations develops more and more branches, it may, despite great literature, become hard to find out which properties should be aimed for, given certain problems in celestial mechanics. With this chapter the authors intend to give an introduction to common, symplectic, and non-symplectic algorithms used to numerically solve the basic Newtonian gravitational N-body problem in dynamical astronomy. Six methods are being presented, including a Cash–Karp Runge–Kutta, Radau15, Lie Series, Bulirsch-Stoer, Candy, and a symplectic Hybrid integrator of Mon. Not.R. Astro. Soc. 304: 793–799,?]. Their main properties, as for example, the handling of conserved quantities, will be discussed on the basis of the Kepler problem.
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