Explicit Symplectic Integrators Research Articles

Electromagnetic field and chaotic charged-particle motion around hairy black holes in Horndeski gravity

The Wald vector potential is an exact solution of the source-less Maxwell equations regarding an electromagnetic field of a vacuum uncharged black hole like the Kerr background black hole in an asymptotically uniform magnetic field. However, it is not if the black hole is a nonvacuum solution in a theory of modified gravity with extra fields or a charged Kerr–Newman spacetime. To satisfy the source-less Maxwell equations in this case, the Wald vector potential must be modified and generalized appropriately. Following this idea, we derive an expression for the vector potential of an electromagnetic field surrounding a hairy black hole in the Horndeski modified gravity theory. Explicit symplectic integrators with excellent long-term behaviour are used to simulate the motion of charged particles around the hairy black hole immersed in the external magnetic field. The recurrence plot method based on the recurrence quantification analysis uses diagonal structures parallel to the main diagonal to show regular dynamics, but adopts no diagonal structures to indicate chaotic dynamics. The method is efficient to detect chaos from order in the curved spacetime, as the Poincaré map and the fast Lyapunov indicator are.

Explicit near-symplectic integrators for post-Newtonian Hamiltonian systems

Explicit symplectic integrators are powerful and widely used for Hamiltonian systems. However, once the post-Newtonian (PN) effect is considered to provide more precise modeling for the N-body problem, explicit symplectic methods cannot be constructed due to the nonseparability of the Hamiltonian. Thus, the available symplectic method is either fully implicit or semi-implicit, which decreases the efficiency because of the implicit iteration used during the evolution. In this paper, we aim to explore efficient explicit methods whose performance is mostly like symplectic methods for PN Hamiltonian systems. Taking the small parameter ε\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\varepsilon $$\\end{document} appearing in PN terms into consideration, we replace the implicit symplectic solver with explicit solvers in the mixed symplectic method to solve the PN term and then derive three explicit methods. It is theoretically shown that the proposed methods are respectively second-order, fourth-order, and pseudo-fourth-order, and that their closeness to the corresponding symplectic methods are O(ε3h3),\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathscr {O}}(\\varepsilon ^{3}h^{3}),$$\\end{document}O(ε5h5),\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathscr {O}}(\\varepsilon ^{5}h^{5}),$$\\end{document} and O(ε3h3).\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathscr {O}}(\\varepsilon ^{3}h^{3}).$$\\end{document} That is, they are explicit near-symplectic methods with the presence of the small parameter ε.\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\varepsilon .$$\\end{document} Numerical experiments with the Hamiltonian problem of spinning compact binaries show that the energy errors and orbital errors of the proposed explicit near-symplectic methods are indistinguishable from the corresponding mixed semi-implicit symplectic methods. The very small magnitude of the difference between the proposed explicit near-symplectic methods and the mixed symplectic methods confirms our theoretical analysis of their closeness to symplecticity. Finally, the much less CPU time consumed by the proposed methods highlights their most important advantage of high efficiency over the mixed symplectic methods.

Application of Symmetric Explicit Symplectic Integrators in Non-Rotating Konoplya and Zhidenko Black Hole Spacetime

In this study, we construct symmetric explicit symplectic schemes for the non-rotating Konoplya and Zhidenko black hole spacetime that effectively maintain the stability of energy errors and solve the tangent vectors from the equations of motion and the variational equations of the system. The fast Lyapunov indicators and Poincaré section are calculated to verify the effectiveness of the smaller alignment index. Meanwhile, different algorithms are used to separately calculate the equations of motion and variation equations, resulting in correspondingly smaller alignment indexes. The numerical results indicate that the smaller alignment index obtained by using a global symplectic algorithm is the fastest method for distinguishing between regular and chaotic cases. The smaller alignment index is used to study the effects of parameters on the dynamic transition from order to chaos. If initial conditions and other parameters are appropriately chosen, we observe that an increase in energy E or the deformation parameter η can easily lead to chaos. Similarly, chaos easily occurs when the angular momentum L is small enough or the magnetic parameter Q stays within a suitable range. By varying the initial conditions of the particles, a distribution plot of the smaller alignment in the X–Z plane of the black hole is obtained. It is found that the particle orbits exhibit a remarkably rich structure. Researching the motion of charged particles around a black hole contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms behind black hole accretion and provides valuable insights into the initial formation process of an accretion disk.

Applicability of the 0–1 test for chaos in magnetized Kerr–Newman spacetimes

The dynamics of electrically neutral or charged particles around a magnetized Kerr–Newman black hole immersed in an external electromagnetic field can be described by a dimensionless Hamiltonian system. This Hamiltonian is given an appropriate time transformation, which allows for construction of explicit symplectic integrators. Selecting one of the integrators with good accuracy, long-term stabilized Hamiltonian error behavior and less computational cost, we employ the 0–1 binary test correlation method to distinguish between regular and chaotic dynamics of electrically neutral or charged particles. The correlation method is almost the same as the techniques of Poincaré map and fast Lyapunov indicators in identifying the regular and chaotic two cases. It can well describe the dependence of the transition from regularity to chaos on varying one or two dynamical parameters. From a statistical viewpoint, chaos occurs easily under some circumstances with an increase of the external magnetic field strength and the particle electric charge and energy or a decrease of the black hole spin and the particle angular momentum. A small change of the black hole electric charge does not very sensitively affect the dynamics of neutral particles. With the black hole electric charge increasing, positively charged particles do not easily yield chaotic motions, but negatively charged particles do. On the other hand, the effect of a small change of the black hole magnetic charge on the dynamical transition from order to chaos has no universal rule.

Effects of Coupling Constants on Chaos of Charged Particles in the Einstein–Æther Theory

There are two free coupling parameters c13 and c14 in the Einstein–Æther metric describing a non-rotating black hole. This metric is the Reissner–Nordström black hole solution when 0≤2c13<c14<2, but it is not for 0≤c14<2c13<2. When the black hole is immersed in an external asymptotically uniform magnetic field, the Hamiltonian system describing the motion of charged particles around the black hole is not integrable; however, the Hamiltonian allows for the construction of explicit symplectic integrators. The proposed fourth-order explicit symplectic scheme is used to investigate the dynamics of charged particles because it exhibits excellent long-term performance in conserving the Hamiltonian. No universal rule can be given to the dependence of regular and chaotic dynamics on varying one or two parameters c13 and c14 in the two cases of 0≤2c13<c14<2 and 0≤c14<2c13<2. The distributions of order and chaos in the binary parameter space (c13,c14) rely on different combinations of the other parameters and the initial conditions.

Application of Explicit Symplectic Integrators in the Magnetized Reissner–Nordström Spacetime

In recent works by Wu and Wang a class of explicit symplectic integrators in curved spacetimes was presented. Different splitting forms or appropriate choices of time-transformed Hamiltonians are determined based on specific Hamiltonian problems. As its application, we constructed a suitable explicit symplectic integrator for surveying the dynamics of test particles in a magnetized Reissner–Nordström spacetime. In addition to computational efficiency, the scheme exhibits good stability and high precision for long-term integration. From the global phase-space structure of Poincaré sections, the extent of chaos can be strengthened when energy E, magnetic parameter B, or the charge q become larger. On the contrary, the occurrence of chaoticity is weakened with an increase of electric parameter Q and angular momentum L. The conclusion can also be supported by fast Lyapunov indicators.

Study of Chaos in Rotating Galaxies Using Extended Force-Gradient Symplectic Methods

We take into account the dynamics of three types of models of rotating galaxies in polar coordinates in a rotating frame. Due to non-axisymmetric potential perturbations, the angular momentum varies with time, and the kinetic energy depends on the momenta and spatial coordinate. The existing explicit force-gradient symplectic integrators are not applicable to such Hamiltonian problems, but the recently extended force-gradient symplectic methods proposed in previous work are. Numerical comparisons show that the extended force-gradient fourth-order symplectic method with symmetry is superior to the standard fourth-order symplectic method but inferior to the optimized extended force-gradient fourth-order symplectic method in accuracy. The optimized extended algorithm with symmetry is used to explore the dynamical features of regular and chaotic orbits in these rotating galaxy models. The gravity effects and the degree of chaos increase with an increase in the number of radial terms in the series expansions of the potential. There are similar dynamical structures of regular and chaotical orbits in the three types of models for the same number of radial terms in the series expansions, energy and initial conditions.

Explicit Symplectic Methods in Black Hole Spacetimes

Many Hamiltonian problems in the solar system are separable into two analytically solvable parts, and thus serve as a great chance to develop and apply explicit symplectic integrators based on operator splitting and composing. However, such constructions are not in general available for curved spacetimes in general relativity and modified theories of gravity because these curved spacetimes correspond to nonseparable Hamiltonians without the two-part splits. Recently, several black hole spacetimes such as the Schwarzschild black hole were found to allow for the construction of explicit symplectic integrators, since their corresponding Hamiltonians are separable into more than two explicitly integrable pieces. Although some other curved spacetimes including the Kerr black hole do not have such multipart splits, their corresponding appropriate time-transformation Hamiltonians do. In fact, the key problem in obtaining symplectic analytically integrable decomposition algorithms is how to split these Hamiltonians or time-transformation Hamiltonians. Considering this idea, we develop explicit symplectic schemes in curved spacetimes. We introduce a class of spacetimes whose Hamiltonians are directly split into several explicitly integrable terms. For example, the Hamiltonian of a rotating black ring has a 13-part split. We also present two sets of spacetimes whose appropriate time-transformation Hamiltonians have the desirable splits. For instance, an eight-part split exists in a time-transformed Hamiltonian of a Kerr–Newman solution with a disformal parameter. In this way, the proposed symplectic splitting methods can be used widely for long-term integrations of orbits in most curved spacetimes we know of.

Equivalence between two charged black holes in dynamics of orbits outside the event horizons

Using the Fermi–Dirac distribution function, Balart and Vagenas gave a charged spherically symmetric regular black hole, which is a solution of Einstein field equations coupled to a nonlinear electrodynamics. In fact, the regular black hole is a Reissner–Nordström (RN) black hole when a metric function is given a Taylor expansion to first order approximations. It does not have a curvature singularity at the origin, but the RN black hole does. Both black hole metrics have horizons and similar asymptotic behaviors, and satisfy the weak energy conditions everywhere. They are almost the same in photon effective potentials, photon circular orbits and photon spheres outside the event horizons. Due to the approximately same photon spheres, the two black holes have no explicit differences in the black hole shadows and constraints of the black hole charges based on the First Image of Sagittarius A $$^{*}$$ . There are relatively minor differences between effective potentials, stable circular orbits and innermost stable circular orbits of charged particles outside the event horizons of the two black holes immersed in external magnetic fields. Although the two magnetized black holes allow different construction methods of explicit symplectic integrators, they exhibit approximately consistent results in the regular and chaotic dynamics of charged particles outside the event horizons. Chaos gets strong as the magnetic field parameter or the magnitude of negative Coulomb parameter increases, but becomes weak when the black hole charge or the positive Coulomb parameter increases. A variation of dynamical properties is not sensitive dependence on an appropriate increase of the black hole charge. The basic equivalence between the two black hole gravitational systems in the dynamics of orbits outside the event horizons is due to the two metric functions having an extremely small difference. This implies that the RN black hole is reasonably replaced by the regular black hole without curvature singularity in many situations.

Chaos in a Magnetized Brane-World Spacetime Using Explicit Symplectic Integrators

A brane-world metric with an external magnetic field is a modified theory of gravity. It is suitable for the description of compact sources on the brane such as stars and black holes. We design a class of explicit symplectic integrators for this spacetime and use one of the integrators to investigate how variations of the parameters affect the motion of test particles. When the magnetic field does not vanish, the integrability of the system is destroyed. Thus, the onset of chaos can be allowed under some circumstances. Chaos easily occurs when the electromagnetic parameter becomes large enough. Dark matter acts as a gravitational force, so that chaotic motion can become more obvious as dark matter increases. The gravity of the black hole is weakened with an increasing positive cosmological parameter; therefore, the extent of chaos can be also strengthened. The proposed symplectic integrator is applied to a ray-tracing method and the study of such chaotic dynamics will be a possible reference for future studies of brane-world black hole shadows with chaotic patterns of self-similar fractal structures based on the Event Horizon Telescope data for M87* and Sagittarius A*.

Chaos in a Magnetized Modified Gravity Schwarzschild Spacetime

Based on the scalar–tensor–vector modified gravitational theory, a modified gravity Schwarzschild black hole solution has been given in the existing literature. Such a black hole spacetime is obtained through the inclusion of a modified gravity coupling parameter, which corresponds to the modified gravitational constant and the black hole charge. In this sense, the modified gravity parameter acts as not only an enhanced gravitational effect but also a gravitational repulsive force contribution to a test particle moving around the black hole. Because the modified Schwarzschild spacetime is static spherical symmetric, it is integrable. However, the spherical symmetry and the integrability are destroyed when the black hole is immersed in an external asymptotic uniform magnetic field and the particle is charged. Although the magnetized modified Schwarzschild spacetime is nonintegrable and inseparable, it allows for the application of explicit symplectic integrators when its Hamiltonian is split into five explicitly integrable parts. Taking one of the proposed explicit symplectic integrators and the techniques of Poincaré sections and fast Lyapunov indicators as numerical tools, we show that the charged particle can have chaotic motions under some circumstances. Chaos is strengthened with an increase of the modified gravity parameter from the global phase space structures. There are similar results when the magnetic field parameter and the particle energy increase. However, an increase of the particle angular momentum weakens the strength of chaos.

An implicit symplectic solver for high-precision long-term integrations of the Solar System

We present FCIRK16, a 16th-order implicit symplectic integrator for long-term high-precision Solar System simulations. Our integrator takes advantage of the near-Keplerian motion of the planets around the Sun by alternating Keplerian motions with corrections accounting for the planetary interactions. Compared to other symplectic integrators (the Wisdom and Holman map and its higher-order generalizations) that also take advantage of the hierarchical nature of the motion of the planets around the central star, our methods require solving implicit equations at each time-step. We claim that, despite this disadvantage, FCIRK16 is more efficient than explicit symplectic integrators for high-precision simulations thanks to: (i) its high order of precision, (ii) its easy parallelization, and (iii) its efficient mixed-precision implementation which reduces the effect of roundoff errors. In addition, unlike typical explicit symplectic integrators for near-Keplerian problems, FCIRK16 is able to integrate problems with arbitrary perturbations (non-necessarily split as a sum of integrable parts). We present a novel analysis of the effect of close encounters in the leading term of the local discretization errors of our integrator. Based on that analysis, a mechanism to detect and refine integration steps that involve close encounters is incorporated in our code. That mechanism allows FCIRK16 to accurately resolve close encounters of arbitrary bodies. We illustrate our treatment of close encounters with the application of FCIRK16 to a point-mass Newtonian 15-body model of the Solar System (with the Sun, the eight planets, Pluto, and five main asteroids) and a 16-body model treating the Moon as a separate body. We also present some numerical comparisons of FCIRK16 with a state-of-the-art high-order explicit symplectic scheme for 16-body model that demonstrate the superiority of our integrator when very high precision is required.

A Note on the Construction of Explicit Symplectic Integrators for Schwarzschild Spacetimes

Abstract In recent publications, the construction of explicit symplectic integrators for Schwarzschild- and Kerr-type spacetimes is based on splitting and composition methods for numerical integrations of Hamiltonians or time-transformed Hamiltonians associated with these spacetimes. Such splittings are not unique but have various options. A Hamiltonian describing the motion of charged particles around the Schwarzschild black hole with an external magnetic field can be separated into three, four, and five explicitly integrable parts. It is shown through numerical tests of regular and chaotic orbits that the three-part splitting method is the best of the three Hamiltonian splitting methods in accuracy. In the three-part splitting, optimized fourth-order partitioned Runge–Kutta and Runge–Kutta–Nyström explicit symplectic integrators exhibit the best accuracies. In fact, they are several orders of magnitude better than the fourth-order Yoshida algorithms for appropriate time steps. The first two algorithms have a small additional computational cost compared with the latter ones. Optimized sixth-order partitioned Runge–Kutta and Runge–Kutta–Nyström explicit symplectic integrators have no dramatic advantages over the optimized fourth-order ones in accuracy during long-term integrations due to roundoff errors. The idea of finding the integrators with the best performance is also suitable for Hamiltonians or time-transformed Hamiltonians of other curved spacetimes including Kerr-type spacetimes. When the numbers of explicitly integrable splitting sub-Hamiltonians are as small as possible, such splitting Hamiltonian methods would bring better accuracies. In this case, the optimized fourth-order partitioned Runge–Kutta and Runge–Kutta–Nyström methods are worth recommending.

Charged Particle Motions near Non-Schwarzschild Black Holes with External Magnetic Fields in Modified Theories of Gravity

A small deformation to the Schwarzschild metric controlled by four free parameters could be referred to as a nonspinning black hole solution in alternative theories of gravity. Since such a non-Schwarzschild metric can be changed into a Kerr-like black hole metric via a complex coordinate transformation, the recently proposed time-transformed, explicit symplectic integrators for the Kerr-type spacetimes are suitable for a Hamiltonian system describing the motion of charged particles around the non-Schwarzschild black hole surrounded with an external magnetic field. The obtained explicit symplectic methods are based on a time-transformed Hamiltonian split into seven parts, whose analytical solutions are explicit functions of new coordinate time. Numerical tests show that such explicit symplectic integrators for intermediate time steps perform well long-term when stabilizing Hamiltonian errors, regardless of regular or chaotic orbits. One of the explicit symplectic integrators with the techniques of Poincaré sections and fast Lyapunov indicators is applied to investigate the effects of the parameters, including the four free deformation parameters, on the orbital dynamical behavior. From the global phase-space structure, chaotic properties are typically strengthened under some circumstances, as the magnitude of the magnetic parameter or any one of the negative deformation parameters increases. However, they are weakened when the angular momentum or any one of the positive deformation parameters increases.

Adjustment of Force–Gradient Operator in Symplectic Methods

Many force–gradient explicit symplectic integration algorithms have been designed for the Hamiltonian H=T(p)+V(q) with kinetic energy T(p)=p2/2 in the existing references. When a force–gradient operator is appropriately adjusted as a new operator, it is still suitable for a class of Hamiltonian problems H=K(p,q)+V(q) with integrable part K(p,q)=∑i=1n∑j=1naijpipj+∑i=1nbipi, where aij=aij(q) and bi=bi(q) are functions of coordinates q. The newly adjusted operator is not a force–gradient operator but is similar to the momentum-version operator associated to the potential V. The newly extended (or adjusted) algorithms are no longer solvers of the original Hamiltonian, but are solvers of slightly modified Hamiltonians. They are explicit symplectic integrators with symmetry or time reversibility. Numerical tests show that the standard symplectic integrators without the new operator are generally poorer than the corresponding extended methods with the new operator in computational accuracies and efficiencies. The optimized methods have better accuracies than the corresponding non-optimized counterparts. Among the tested symplectic methods, the two extended optimized seven-stage fourth-order methods of Omelyan, Mryglod and Folk exhibit the best numerical performance. As a result, one of the two optimized algorithms is used to study the orbital dynamical features of a modified Hénon–Heiles system and a spring pendulum. These extended integrators allow for integrations in Hamiltonian problems, such as the spiral structure in self-consistent models of rotating galaxies and the spiral arms in galaxies.

Anisotropic Landau-Lifshitz model in discrete space-time

We construct an integrable lattice model of classical interacting spins in discrete space-time, representing a discrete-time analogue of the lattice Landau-Lifshitz ferromagnet with uniaxial anisotropy. As an application we use this explicit discrete symplectic integration scheme to compute the spin Drude weight and diffusion constant as functions of anisotropy and chemical potential. We demonstrate qualitatively different behavior in the easy-axis and the easy-plane regimes in the non-magnetized sector. Upon approaching the isotropic point we also find an algebraic divergence of the diffusion constant, signaling a crossover to spin superdiffusion.

Construction of Explicit Symplectic Integrators in General Relativity. IV. Kerr Black Holes

Abstract In previous papers, explicit symplectic integrators were designed for nonrotating black holes, such as a Schwarzschild black hole. However, they fail to work in the Kerr spacetime because not all variables can be separable, or not all splitting parts have analytical solutions as explicit functions of proper time. To cope with this difficulty, we introduce a time transformation function to the Hamiltonian of Kerr geometry so as to obtain a time-transformed Hamiltonian consisting of five splitting parts, whose analytical solutions are explicit functions of the new coordinate time. The chosen time transformation function can cause time steps to be adaptive, but it is mainly used to implement the desired splitting of the time-transformed Hamiltonian. In this manner, new explicit symplectic algorithms are easily available. Unlike Runge–Kutta integrators, the newly proposed algorithms exhibit good long-term behavior in the conservation of Hamiltonian quantities when appropriate fixed coordinate time steps are considered. They are better than same-order implicit and explicit mixed symplectic algorithms and extended phase-space explicit symplectic-like methods in computational efficiency. The proposed idea on the construction of explicit symplectic integrators is suitable for not only the Kerr metric but also many other relativistic problems, such as a Kerr black hole immersed in a magnetic field, a Kerr–Newman black hole with an external magnetic field, axially symmetric core–shell systems, and five-dimensional black ring metrics.

Construction of Explicit Symplectic Integrators in General Relativity. III. Reissner–Nordström-(anti)-de Sitter Black Holes

Abstract We give a possible splitting method to a Hamiltonian for the description of charged particles moving around the Reissner–Nordström-(anti)-de Sitter black hole with an external magnetic field. This Hamiltonian can be separated into six analytical solvable pieces, whose solutions are explicit functions of proper time. In this case, second- and fourth-order explicit symplectic integrators are easily available. They exhibit excellent long-term behavior in maintaining the boundness of Hamiltonian errors regardless of ordered or chaotic orbits if appropriate step sizes are chosen. Under some circumstances, an increase of the positive cosmological constant gives rise to strengthening the extent of chaos from the global phase space; namely, chaos of charged particles occurs easily for the accelerated expansion of the universe. However, an increase of the magnitude of the negative cosmological constant does not. The different contributions to chaos are because the cosmological constant acts as a repulsive force in the Reissner–Nordström-de Sitter black hole, but an attractive force in the Reissner–Nordström-anti-de Sitter black hole.

Explicit structure-preserving geometric particle-in-cell algorithm in curvilinear orthogonal coordinate systems and its applications to whole-device 6D kinetic simulations of tokamak physics

Explicit structure-preserving geometric particle-in-cell (PIC) algorithm in curvilinear orthogonal coordinate systems is developed. The work reported represents a further development of the structure-preserving geometric PIC algorithm achieving the goal of practical applications in magnetic fusion research. The algorithm is constructed by discretizing the field theory for the system of charged particles and electromagnetic field using Whitney forms, discrete exterior calculus, and explicit non-canonical symplectic integration. In addition to the truncated infinitely dimensional symplectic structure, the algorithm preserves exactly many important physical symmetries and conservation laws, such as local energy conservation, gauge symmetry and the corresponding local charge conservation. As a result, the algorithm possesses the long-term accuracy and fidelity required for first-principles-based simulations of the multiscale tokamak physics. The algorithm has been implemented in the SymPIC code, which is designed for high-efficiency massively-parallel PIC simulations in modern clusters. The code has been applied to carry out whole-device 6D kinetic simulation studies of tokamak physics. A self-consistent kinetic steady state for fusion plasma in the tokamak geometry is numerically found with a predominately diagonal and anisotropic pressure tensor. The state also admits a steady-state sub-sonic ion flow in the range of 10 km s−1, agreeing with experimental observations and analytical calculations Kinetic ballooning instability in the self-consistent kinetic steady state is simulated. It is shown that high-n ballooning modes have larger growth rates than low-n global modes, and in the nonlinear phase the modes saturate approximately in 5 ion transit times at the 2% level by the E × B flow generated by the instability. These results are consistent with early and recent electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations.

Construction of Explicit Symplectic Integrators in General Relativity. II. Reissner–Nordström Black Holes

Abstract In a previous paper, second- and fourth-order explicit symplectic integrators were designed for a Hamiltonian of the Schwarzschild black hole. Following this work, we continue to trace the possibility of construction of explicit symplectic integrators for a Hamiltonian of charged particles moving around a Reissner–Nordström black hole with an external magnetic field. Such explicit symplectic methods are still available when the Hamiltonian is separated into five independently integrable parts with analytical solutions as explicit functions of proper time. Numerical tests show that the proposed algorithms share desirable properties in their long-term stability, precision, and efficiency for appropriate choices of step size. For the applicability of one of the new algorithms, the effects of black hole’s charge, the Coulomb part of the electromagnetic potential and the magnetic parameter on the dynamical behavior are surveyed. Under some circumstances, the extent of chaos becomes strong with an increase of the magnetic parameter from a global phase-space structure. No variation of the black hole’s charge other than the Coulomb part affects the regular and chaotic dynamics of the particles’ orbits. A positive Coulomb part more easily induces chaos than a negative one.