The use of Hamilton's principle to derive time-advance algorithms for ordinary differential equations

Hamilton's principle is applied to derive a class of numerical algorithms for systems of ordinary differential equations when the equations are derivable from a Lagrangian. This is an important extension into the time domain of an earlier use of Hamilton's principle to derive algorithms for the spatial operators in Maxwell's equations. In that work, given a set of expansion functions for spatial dependences, the Vlasov-Maxwell equations were replaced by a system of ordinary differential equations in time, but the question of solving the ordinary differential equations was not addressed. Advantageous properties of the new time-advance algorithms have been identified analytically and by numerical comparison with other methods, such as Runge-Kutta and symplectic algorithms. This approach to time advance can be extended to include partial differential equations and the Vlasov-Maxwell equations. An interesting issue that could be studied is whether a collisionless plasma simulation completely based on Hamilton's principle can be used to obtain a convergent computation of average properties, such as the electric energy, even when the underlying particle motion is characterized by sensitive dependence on initial conditions.