Application of the variational principle to deriving energy-preserving schemes for the Hamilton equation

Abstract

In this contribution, we propose a new framework to derive energy-preserving numerical schemes based on the variational principle for Hamiltonian mechanics. We focus on Noether's theorem, which shows that the symmetry with respect to time translation gives the energy conservation law. By reproducing the calculation of the proof of Noether's theorem after discretization using the summation by parts and the discrete gradient, we obtain the scheme and the corresponding discrete energy at the same time. The significant property of efficiency is that the appropriate choice of the discrete gradient makes our schemes explicit if the Hamiltonian is separable.