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P.W. Sharp (University of Auckland)
We compare the efficiency, stability properties, overhead and storage requirements of fixed-stepsize, high order Störmer and explicit Runge-Kutta Nyström methods for N-body simulations of the solar system.
We find high order ERKN methods have better stability properties and smaller overhead than Störmer methods. Our numerical tests suggest ERKN methods are more efficient than Störmer methods for shorter simulations such as one that simulates ten million years of the jovian planets. However, the superior error growth of the Störmer method means they are more efficient on longer simulations.