Integration methods based on canonical coordinates of the second kind (Q5929862)

The authors consider ordinary differential equations on manifolds that can be written in terms of the action of a Lie group. Using a coordinate map from the Lie algebra to the Lie group, they pull back such equations to equations on the Lie algebra where it is straightforward to apply standard numerical methods like Runge-Kutta. The choice of the coordinate map has great influence on the complexity of this approach. The simplest choice is the classical exponential map, but it leads to rather costly methods because of the need to frequently evaluate it. The authors introduce the notion of an admissible ordered basis of a Lie algebra with respect to which they can define a less expensive coordinate map. They show how such a basis can be constructed explicitly for any semisimple Lie algebra using its root space decomposition and consider in detail the four classical families \(A_\ell\), \(B_\ell\), \(C_\ell\), and \(D_\ell\). Less complete results are presented for solvable algebras. The efficiency of the new methods is demonstrated by a numerical comparison with older methods proposed by \textit{H. Munthe-Kaas} [Appl. Numer. Math. 29, No.~1, 115-127 (1999; Zbl 0934.65077)]. Unfortunately, no comparisons with standard numerical methods are presented.