title: Variational symplectic integrator for long-time simulations of the guiding-center motion of charged particles in general magnetic fields.
abstract: A variational symplectic integrator for the guiding-center motion of charged particles in general magnetic fields is developed for long-time simulation studies of magnetized plasmas. Instead of discretizing the differential equations of the guiding-center motion, the action of the guiding-center motion is discretized and minimized to obtain the iteration rules for advancing the dynamics. The variational symplectic integrator conserves exactly a discrete Lagrangian symplectic structure, and has better numerical properties over long integration time, compared with standard integrators, such as the standard and variable time-step fourth order Runge-Kutta methods.
authors.affiliation: Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08543, USA.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Xiaoyin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guan