Computing the long term evolution of the solar system with geometric numerical integrators

Abstract

Simulating the dynamics of the Sun–Earth–Moon system with a standard algorithm yields a dramatically wrong solution, predicting that the Moon is ejected from its orbit. In contrast, a well chosen algorithm with the same initial data yields the correct behavior. We explain the main ideas of how the evolution of the solar system can be computed over long times by taking advantage of so-called geometric numerical methods. Short sample codes are provided for the Sun–Earth–Moon system.