Explicit Symplectic Integrators with Adaptive Time Steps in Curved Spacetimes

Abstract Recently, our group developed explicit symplectic methods for curved spacetimes that are not split into several explicitly integrable parts but are via appropriate time transformations. Such time-transformed explicit symplectic integrators should have employed adaptive time steps in principle, but they are often difficult in practical implementations. In fact, they work well if time transformation functions cause the time-transformed Hamiltonians to have the desired splits and approach 1 or constants for sufficiently large distances. However, they do not satisfy the requirement of step-size selections in this case. Based on the step-size control technique proposed by Preto & Saha, the nonadaptive time-step time-transformed explicit symplectic methods are slightly adjusted as adaptive ones. The adaptive methods have only two additional steps and a negligible increase in computational cost compared with the nonadaptive ones. Their implementation is simple. Several dynamical simulations of particles and photons near black holes have demonstrated that the adaptive methods typically improve the efficiency of the nonadaptive methods. Because of the desirable property, the new adaptive methods are applied to investigate the chaotic dynamics of particles and photons outside the horizon in a Schwarzschild–Melvin spacetime. The new methods are widely applicable to all curved spacetimes corresponding to Hamiltonians or time-transformed Hamiltonians with the expected splits. In addition, application to the backward ray-tracing method for studying the motion of photons and shadows of black holes is possible.