Motion of a charge in a magnetic dipole field. I: Painlevé analysis and a conservative numerical scheme (Q1119002)

The problem of the motion of a charged particle in the magnetic dipole field is considered and a new numerical scheme to solve the equations of the motion is presented. The scheme is time-inversion symmetry preserving and it shows a discrete version of the two conserved quantities of the underlying continuous equation. The Painlevé analysis is applied to the equations of motions in order to get some insight into the integrability of the system, but a negative result is obtained.