Efficient fourth order symplectic integrators for near-harmonic separable Hamiltonian systems

Abstract: Efficient fourth order symplectic integrators are proposed for numerical integration of separable Hamiltonian systems H(p,q)=T(p)+V(q). Symmetric splitting coefficients with five to nine stages are obtained by higher order decomposition of the simple harmonic oscillator. The performance of the methods is evaluated for various Hamiltonian systems: Integration errors are compared to those of acclaimed integrators composed by S. Blanes et al. (2013), W. Kahan et al. (1999) and H. Yoshida (1990). Numerical tests indicate that the integrators obtained in this paper perform significantly better than previous integrators for common Hamiltonian systems.