Canonical Kick Element!

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csun
Posts: 6
Joined: 14 Apr 2010, 13:15

Canonical Kick Element!

Post by csun » 03 Jun 2010, 18:54

Hello Michael,

To define a canonical kick element, such as KQUD and KSEXT, we need to provide the N_KICKS parameter. What does this parameter exactly mean? For example, if N_KICKS = 18 and INTEGRATION_ORDER =4, does this mean we split the element into 6 slices first, and then apply the 4th order symplectic integration which involves 3 kicks. How about N_KICKS=10 and INTEGRATION_ORDER =4 where N_KICKS cannot be divided by 3 evenly, in this case how many slices is the element split into?

Thanks!

CSun

michael_borland
Posts: 1933
Joined: 19 May 2008, 09:33
Location: Argonne National Laboratory
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Re: Canonical Kick Element!

Post by michael_borland » 03 Jun 2010, 20:55

CSun,

* For order=2, there is just one kick per slice. So N_KICKS is both the number of kicks and the number of slices.

* For order=4, there are three kicks and four drifts per slice. So elegant uses int(N_KICKS/4) slices, each with 3 kicks. In this case N_KICKS is misleading. It's really the number of integration drifts.

--Michael

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