Comparisons of high order Stormer and explicit Runge-Kutta Nystrom methods for N-body simulations of the solar system

P.W. Sharp

Abstract

We compare the efficiency, stability properties, overhead, round-off error propagation
and storage requirements of fixed-stepsize high order Stormer and
explicit Runge-Kutta Nystrom methods for N-body simulations of the solar system.
The comparisons of the round-off error propagation and efficiency are
made using realistic problems, one of which requires over 500 million
integration steps.
<p>
We find high order ERKN methods have better stability properties
and smaller overhead than Stormer methods. Our numerical tests
suggest ERKN methods are more efficient than Stormer methods for shorter simulations such as
one that simulates ten million years of the jovian planets. However, the superior
round-off error propagation of the Stormer method
<p>

<b>Comment:</b>
a) The Math Reviews classification above is for the 2000 MSC system, b) A pdf version of the file is available with the postscript and dvi versions
<p>

Keywords
N-body simulations, Stormer, explicit Runge-Kutta Nystrom, high order, comparisons

Math Review Classification
Primary 65L06 ; Secondary 70F05, 70F10, 85-08

Last Updated
13 June

Length
21 Pages

Availability
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