Higher order volume-preserving schemes for charged particle dynamics

Abstract

A class of higher order numerical methods for advancing the charged particles in a general electromagnetic field is developed based on processing technique. By taking the volume-preserving methods as the kernel, the processed methods are still volume-preserving, and preserve the conservative quantities for the Lorenz force system. Moreover, this class of numerical methods are explicit and are more efficient compared with other higher order composition methods. Linear stability analysis is given by applying the numerical methods to the test equation. It is shown that the newly constructed higher order methods have the better stability property. This allows the use of larger step sizes in their implementation.