IMPROVED HIGH ORDER INTEGRATORS BASED ON MAGNUS EPANSION S. Blanes ;, F. Casas, and J. Ros 3 Abstract We build high order ecient numerical integration

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Numerical Analysis Reports Improved High Order Integrators Based on Magnus Expansion S. Blanes, F. Casas and J. Ros DAMTP 999/NA8 August, 999 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Silver Street Cambridge England CB3 9EW

IMPROVED HIGH ORDER INTEGRATORS BASED ON MAGNUS EPANSION S. Blanes ;, F. Casas, and J. Ros 3 Abstract We build high order ecient numerical integration methods for solving the linear dierential equation _ = A(t) based on Magnus expansion. These methods preserve qualitative geometric properties of the exact solution and involve the use of single integrals and fewer commutators than previously published schemes. Sixth- and eighth-order numerical algorithms with automatic step size control are constructed explicitly. The analysis is carried out by using the theory of free Lie algebras. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW, England (S.Blanes@damtp.cam.ac.uk). Departament de Matematiques, Universitat Jaume I, 7-Castellon, Spain (casas@mat.uji.es). 3 Departament de Fsica Teorica and IFIC, Universitat de Valencia, 46- Burjassot, Valencia, Spain (Jose.Ros@uv.es). Keywords: Linear dierential equations; Initial value problems; Numerical methods; Free Lie algebra; Magnus expansion AMS classication: 65L5; 65L7; 65D3

Introduction The aim of this paper is to construct ecient numerical integration algorithms for solving the initial value problem dened by the linear dierential equation d dt = A(t); (t ) = I: () Here A(t) stands for a suciently smooth matrix or linear operator to ensure the existence of solution. As is well known, () governs the evolution of a great variety of physical systems. In particular, the time evolution of any quantum mechanical system is described by an equation of this type. From the general theory of ordinary dierential equations, if A is a continuous n-by-n matrix of (complex) functions on a real t interval the matrix dierential equation () may be considered to be associated with the linear homogeneous system of the n-th order du with u C n, in the sense that dt = A(t) u; u(t ) = u () u(t) = (t; t ) u (3) is a solution of () if (t; t ) satises (). In recent years there has been an increasing interest in designing numerical schemes for solving dierential equations that preserve geometric and qualitative properties of the exact solution. For example, in classical Hamiltonian dynamics there are a large number of references on symplectic integration algorithms (see [] for a review). More generally, the numerical integration of dierential equations in Lie groups in such a way that characteristic properties, associated with the algebraic structure of the system, are preserved has received considerable attention [7, ]. The fundamental motivation for using this kind of schemes rather than general algorithms can be stated as follows: \... an algorithm which transforms properly with respect to a class of transformations is more basic than one that does not. In a sense the invariant algorithm attacks the problem and not the particular representation used..." ([], cited by [5]). It has been known for a long time that the solution of () can locally be written in the form [5] where is obtained as an innite series (t; t ) = e (t;t ) ; (4) (t; t ) = k= k (t; t ): (5) Equations (4) and (5) constitute the so-called Magnus expansion of the solution (t; t ). Explicit formulae for k of all orders have been given recently in [] by using graph theory techniques, although expressions for k 5 were already

available in terms of nested commutators of A(t) and multivariate integrals [, 4, 6, ]. What is more signicant for our purposes, a recursive procedure has been designed for the generation of k [4] that allows also to enlarge the t-domain of convergence of the expansion []. An important advantage of the Magnus expansion is that, even if the series (5) is truncated, it still preserves intrinsic geometric properties of the exact solution. For instance, if equation () refers to the quantum mechanical evolution operator, the approximate analytical solution obtained by Magnus expansion is still unitary no matter where the series (5) is truncated. More generally, if () is considered on a Lie group G, e (t;t ) stays on G for all t, provided A(t) belongs to the Lie algebra associated with G. In this paper we design a whole family of new high order numerical integrators for eq. () by appropriately truncating the Magnus series (5) and replacing the multivariate integrals appearing in k by single analytical integrals and conveniently chosen quadrature formulae. The approach we follow is dierent from that used by Iserles and Nrsett in their pioneering work []. As a result, the time-symmetric algorithms we obtain are optimal with respect to the number of commutators involved, and can be easily implemented with a variable step size control device still retaining important structural properties of the original dynamical system. The plan of the paper is as follows. In section we introduce the recurrence relation used for constructing explicitly the Magnus expansion and the new approximation schemes, establish the convergence of the series (5), show the equivalence of this procedure with the graph-theoretical approach and analyze the time-symmetry of the expansion. In section 3 we obtain new approximation schemes of order four, six and eigth to the Magnus expansion involving exclusively single analytical integrals with just one, four and ten commutators, respectively. These methods can be used both in perturbative analyses and as numerical integrators if the univariate integrals are evaluated exactly. In section 4 we discuss some issues related to the implementation of the new schemes as practical integration algorithms: we propose two families of such algorithms based on dierent symmetric quadrature rules, design some hybrid methods involving analytical integrals and quadratures, and present a new way of implementing step size control. Finally, section 5 contains our conclusions. A review of the Magnus series expansion. The recurrence Magnus procedure for solving () is to consider the representation = e. If this is substituted in the equation, the following nonlinear dierential equation for is obtained [5, 4, 3] _ = j= B j j! (ad ) j A; (t = ) = : (6) 3

Here the dot stands for time derivative, B j are Bernoulli numbers [], and we introduce the adjoint operator: ad A = A, ad (A) = [; A] A? A, ad j A = ad (ad j? A). P When the Magnus series = j= j is substituted into equation (6) one gets [4] n (t) = n? j= B j j! Z t S (j) n ()d; n (7) with the functions S (j) n satisfying the recurrence relation S () = A; Sn = ; n > (8) n?j h i S n (j) = m ; S (j?) n?m ; j n? m= so that they have the generic structure S (j) n = [ i ; [: : : [ ik ; A] : : : ]] (9) with the sum extended over all i ; : : : ; i k such that i + + i k = n?. From this recurrence we get (t) = (t) = 3 (t) = 6 Z t Z t A(t )dt Z t Z t dt dt [A(t ); A(t )] () Z t Z t dt dt dt 3 ([A(t ); [A(t ); A(t 3 )]] + [A(t 3 ); [A(t ); A(t )]]); etc. In general, k is a k-multivariate integral involving a linear combination of k nested commutators of A evaluated at dierent times t i, i = ; : : : ; k. It is important to emphasize that if (8) is substituted in (7) we are able to obtain bounds on the functions n (t) and, consequently, an estimate on the convergence t-domain of the expansion. More specically, if the matrix A(t) is bounded and ka(t)k is a piecewise continuous function, then absolute convergence of Magnus series is ensured for t values which satisfy [] K(t) Z t ka()k d < :86869: (). Connection with the graph-theoretical formalism The rst analysis of Magnus expansion as a numerical method for integrating matrix dierential equations was given by Iserles and Nrsett [], their point of departure being the correspondence between the terms in Magnus expansion and a subset of binary rooted trees. Thus, by using graph theory, they present a recursive rule of the generation of the dierent terms and a procedure for 4

reducing the number of commutators and quadratures involved. For completeness, in the sequel we establish the equivalence of the recurrence (7) and (8) with the graph theoretical approach. In essence, the idea of Iserles and Nrsett is to associate each term in the expansion with a rooted tree, according to the following prescription. Let us dene T = f s s g; where A(t) ; ; and recursively T m = ( : T k ; T k ; k + k = m? ) @? : Then, given two expansion terms H and H, which have been associated with T k and T k, respectively (k + k = m? ), we associate H (t) = Z t H ()d; H (t) with = @?: These composition rules establish a one-to-one relationship between a rooted tree T [ m T m, and a matrix function H (t) involving A, multivariate integrals and commutators. It turns out that every T m, m, can be written in a unique way as s 3 @? s @ @? = @? or = a( ; ; : : : ; s ). Then Magnus expansion can be expressed in the form (t) =.... m= T m () Z t H ()d; () with ( s ) = and () = B s s! sy l= ( l ); so that m= T m ()H (t) = m s= B s s! k ;::: ;k s k ++k s=m?s i T i ( ) ( s )H a( ;::: ; s) : 5

Thus, by comparing (7) and () we have m (t) = T m? () Z t H ()d = m? j= B j j! Z t S (j) m ()d and nally S (j) m = k ;::: ;k j k ++k j =m??j i T i ( ) ( j )H a( ;::: ; j ): In other words, each term S n (j) in the recurrence (8) carries on a complete set of binary trees. Thus, the use of (7) and (8) can be particularly well suited when high orders of the expansion are considered, for two reasons: (i) the enormous number of trees involved and (ii) in () many terms are redundant, and a careful graph theoretical analysis is needed to deduce which terms have to be discarded []..3 Time-symmetry of the expansion The linear dierential equation _ = A(t); (t ) = (3) is time-symmetric, in the sense that, for every t f t, integrating (3) from t = t to t = t f, followed by the integration of _Y =?A(t + t f? t)y; Y (t ) = (t f ) (4) in the same range, bring us back to the initial condition. If we denote by (t f ; t ) the Magnus expansion of (4), then time-symmetry implies that (t f ; t ) + (t f ; t ) = and, since all the terms k are independent, k (t f ; t ) =? k (t f ; t ) for all k. Observe that (t f ; t ) has exactly the same structure as (t f ; t ) but reversing the sign of A and interchanging t and t f. To take advantage of the time-symmetry, let us write the solution of (3) at the nal time t f = t + h as (t = + h ) = exp (t = + h ; t =? h ) (t =? h ); (5) where t = = (t + t f )=. Then (t =? h ) = exp?(t = + h ; t =? h ) (t = + h ): (6) 6

On the other hand, the solution at t can be written as (t =? h ) = exp (t =? h ; t = + h ) (t = + h ); (7) so that, by comparing (6) and (7), (t =? h ; t = + h ) =?(t = + h ; t =? h ) (8) and so does not contain even powers of h. If A(t) is an analytic function and a Taylor series centered around t = is considered, then each term in k is an odd function of h and, in particular, i+ = O(h i+3 ) for i. This fact has been noticed in [3] and [9]. 3 Approximation schemes based on Magnus expansion 3. General considerations The usual procedure for implementing Magnus expansion as a practical integration algorithm involves three steps. First, the series is truncated at an appropriate order. Second, the multivariate integrals in are replaced by conveniently chosen quadratures. Third, the exponential of the resulting approximation to the matrix is computed. Concerning the rst aspect, it is clear from (8) that, for achieving a n-th (n > ) order integration method only terms up to n? in the series are required [, 4]. On the other hand, Iserles and Nrsett [] have demonstrated how k, k >, can be approximated in terms of nested commutators of A(t ik ) at dierent nodes t ik [t ; t + h], h being the time step size: k = h k i ;i ;::: ;i k N i i i k [A(t i ); [A(t i ); : : : ; A(t ik )]] + O(h n+ ): (9) Then, in terms of function evaluations, the cost of all the multivariate quadratures needed to approximate Magnus expansion to given order is the same as the cost of the single quadrature formula for. The coecients i i i k in (9) have to satisfy an extraordinarily large system of linear equations for n 3 and consequently the number of commutators required grows rapidly with the order, this fact being the bottleneck for the practical utility of this class of methods. Dierent strategies have been analyzed to reduce the total number of commutators, including the use of time-symmetry and the concept of a graded free Lie algebra [9]. The usual approach consists in constructing an interpolating approximation ~ A of the matrix A based on Gauss-Legendre points and then compute the truncated Magnus expansion for ~ A. This process can be implemented in a symbolic computation package [7, 9]. As a result, methods of order 4, 6 and 8 using Gauss-Legendre quadratures have been obtained with, 7

7 and independent terms. In the case of the 4-th and 6-th order schemes, these terms are combined in such a way that the actual number of commutators reduces to and 5, respectively [9]. A dierent procedure for obtaining integration methods based on Magnus expansion was proposed in [3, 4]. The idea is to apply directly the recurrence (7)-(8) to a Taylor series expansion of the matrix A(t) and then to reproduce the resulting expression of with a linear combination of nested commutators involving A evaluated at certain quadrature points. In this way, some 4-th and 6-th order methods with one and seven commutators were designed, both with Gauss-Legendre and Newton-Cotes quadrature rules [3, 4]. Here we pursue this strategy and, by a careful analysis of the dierent terms of the expansion concerning its behaviour with respect to time-symmetry, we obtain approximation schemes of order 6 and 8 involving the evaluation of only 4 and commutators, respectively. The new methods are expressed in terms of single analytical integrals, so that they can be used either as numerical schemes for carrying out the integration of () or as analytical approximations to the exact solution in perturbative analyses. In the rst case the integrals are usually discretised with symmetric quadrature rules. 3. The new approximation schemes As stated above, to take advantage of the time-symmetry property we consider a Taylor expansion of A(t) around t = = t + h, A(t) =? i a i t? t= ; () i= where a i = i! d i A(t) dt i, and then compute the corresponding expression t=t= for the terms k (t + h; t ) in the Magnus expansion. This has been done by programming the recurrence (7)-(8) in Mathematica, after taking into account the existing linear relations between dierent nested commutators due to the Jacobi identity. For order 8, the nal expressions for k, k = ; : : : ; 6 obtained by our code are = ha + h 3 a + h 5 8 a 4 + h 7 448 a 6 = h?? 3 [a ; a ] + h 5 8 [a ; a 3 ] + 4 [a ; a ] +? h 7 448 [a ; a 5 ] + 4 [a ; a 4 ]? 344 [a ; a 3 ] 3 = h 5 36 [a ; a ; a ]? 4 [a ; a ; a ] + h 7 68 [a ; a ; a 4 ]? 4 [a ; a ; a 3 ] + 67 [a ; a ; a ] + 648 [a ; a ; a ]? 84 [a 3; a ; a ] 8

Method of order s = 4 s = 6 s = 8 s = Dimension of g 7 7 5 Magnus (t ) 6 66 6 Magnus (t = ) 3 9 7 8 # commutators 4 Table : Number of terms appearing in the Magnus expansion for achieving methods of order s. The actual number of commutators of the new schemes is given in the last row. 4 = h 5 7 [a ; a ; a ; a ] + h 7 67 [a ; a ; a ; a 3 ]? 756 [a ; a ; a ; a ] + 43 [a ; a ; a ; a ] + 648 [a ; a ; a ; a ]? 67 [a ; a ; a ; a ]? 5 = h 7 5 [a ; a ; a ; a ; a ]? 34 [a ; a ; a ; a ; a ] + 756 [a ; a ; a ; a ; a ] ()? 6 = h 7 34 [a ; a ; a ; a ; a ; a ] Here we denote [a i ; a i ; : : : ; a ; a il? i l ] [a i ; [a i ; [: : : ; [a ; a il? i l ] : : : ]]]. As is well known, the matrices q i a i? h i, i = ; ; : : : ; s can be considered as the generators of a graded free Lie algebra with grades ; ; : : : ; s [9]. In Table we show the dimension of the graded free Lie algebra g involved in the process of obtaining a s-th order integration method from Magnus expansion, computed according to Munthe-Kaas and Owren [9]. We also include the actual number of terms appearing in the Magnus expansion when a Taylor series of A(t) around t = t (second row) and t = t = (third row) is considered. It is worth noticing how the time-symmetry reduces signicantly the dimension and thus the number of determining equations to be satised by the integration algorithms. Let us now introduce the univariate integrals B (i) = h i+ Z h=?h= t i A t + h When the Taylor series () is inserted into () we get dt; i = ; ; ; : : : () B () = a + h a + 8 h4 a 4 + 448 h6 a 6 + B () = ha + 8 h3 a 3 + 448 h5 a 5 + (3) B () = a + 8 h a + 448 h4 a 4 + 34 h6 a 6 + and so on. In general, B (i) (?h) = B (i) (h) (containing only elements a j ) and B (i+) (?h) =?B (i+) (h) (containing only a j+ ). We observe then that the 9

expressions of k, as collected in (), can be rewritten in terms of the B (i) with a very simple change of variables. For instance, the second order approximation to the solution is given by e = e ha + O(h 3 ) = e hb() + O(h 3 ) whereas a 4-th order scheme is obtained when e = e + ~ + O(h 5 ) = hb () ~ =?h [B () ; B () ] (4) In general, to achieve a n-th order approximation to it is only necessary to consider single integrals B (i) up to i = n?. The process for obtaining higher order approximations can be optimized to reduce the total number of commutators appearing in k (last row of Table ) with an appropriate choice of linear combinations of the single integrals B (i). We illustrate the procedure by constructing schemes of order six and eight which preserve time-symmetry. We denote by ~ i the corresponding approximations to i up to the order considered. Sixth-order. The most general time-symmetric form for is ~ = h [B () ; b B () + b B () ]: (5) The coecients b, b are obtained by solving a linear system of three equations. In fact, only two of them are independent, so that the solution is b = 3=, b =?6. For 3 another linear system of two equations has to be solved, and this can be done with ~ 3 = c h 3 [B () ; [B () ; B () ]] + c h[b () ; ~ ]; (6) where c = =, c = 3=5 and ~ is evaluated according to (5). Finally, the unique equation arising in 4 can be solved if we take ~ 4 = d h [B () ; [B () ; ~ ]] (7) with d =?=6. This can be seen by noticing that ~ _ h 3 [a ; a ] + O(h 5 ) and [B () ; [B () ; ]] gives [a ; [a ; ]]. In summary, the 6-th order approximation can be written as = hb () ~ = h [B () ; 3 B()? 6B () ] ~ 3 + ~ 4 = h [B () ; [B () ; hb()? 6 ~ ]] + 3 5 h[b() ; ~ ] (8)

thus requiring the computation of only four dierent commutators. Eighth-order. To reproduce the six commutators of we consider the combination ~ = h ([b B () + b B () ; B (3) ] + [b 3 B () + b 4 B () ;?ub () + B (3) ]) h (R + R ): (9) As a matter of fact, only the four parameters b i are needed to get the coecients in (). The constant u has been introduced to satisfy some of the equations appearing in 3 without increasing the total number of commutators. More specically, the three equations corresponding to [a ; a ; a ], [a ; a ; a 4 ], [a ; a ; a ] (containing only even subindices) can be solved with R 3 [c B () + c B () ; [B () ; B () ]]; (3) whereas for the remaining four equations we need, in particular, R 3 [B (3) ; c 3 R + c 4 R ]; (3) with solution and thus c = 9 8 ; c =? 5 7 ; c 3 = 7 ; c 4 = ; u = 5 8 ~ 3 = h 3 (R 3 + R 3 ): (3) For this particular value of u we get b =? 38 5 ; b = 4; b 3 = 63 5 ; b 4 =?84: (33) With respect to 4, the equations corresponding to [a ; a ; a ; a ], [a ; a ; a ; a ] can be solved with R 4 [B (3) ; d R 3 + d R 3 ] (34) and the remaining four equations are satised through the combination R 4 + R 43 [c B () + c B () ; [B () ; d 3 R + d 4 R ]] + [d 5 B () + d 6 B () ; [B () ; R ]] (35) where the form of R 4 has been chosen so as to evaluate R 3 and R 4 together. The coecients are given by and then d = d = 7 ; d 3 = 6 588 ; d 4 =? ; d 5 =? 65 46 ; d 6 = 875 343 ; (36) ~ 4 = h 4 (R 4 + R 4 + R 43 ):

Finally, for 5 and 6 we take ~ 5 + ~ 6 = h 5 ([B () ; [B () ; e (R 3 + hr 4 ) + e R 3 + hfr 43 ]] + [B (3) ; d R 4 + e 3 R 43 ]) h 5 (R 5 + R 5 ) (37) in order to reduce the number of commutators. The coecients are e =? 4 ; e = 6 ; e 3 = 8 89 ; f =? 4 : (38) As a result, the 8-th order approximation can be expressed in terms of only ten commutators. In fact, if we denote Q = R ; Q = R ; Q 3 = R 3 + hr 4 ; Q 4 = R 3 ; Q 5 = R 43 ; Q 6 = R 4 + hr 5 ; Q 7 = R 5 we have the following algorithm Q = [? 38 5 B() + 4B () ; B (3) ] Q = [ 63 5 B()? 84B () ;? 5 8 B() + B (3) ] Q 3 = [ 9 5 8 B()? 7 B() ; [B () ; B () + h( 6 588 Q? Q )]] Q 4 = [B (3) ; Q 7 + Q ] Q 5 = [? 65 46 B() + 875 343 B() ; [B () ; Q ]] Q 6 = [B (3) ; (Q 7 3 + Q 4 ) + 8 hq 89 5] Q 7 =? 4 [B() ; [B () ; Q 3? Q 3 4 + hq 5 ]] (39) and nally = hb () ~ = h (Q + Q ) ~ 3 + ~ 4 + ~ 5 + ~ 6 = h 3 (Q 3 + Q 4 ) + h 4 (Q 5 + Q 6 ) + h 5 Q 7 (4) It is worth noticing that, due to the dependence of the univariate integrals B (i) on h and the structure of the approximations ~ i, the schemes (4), (8) and (4) are time-symmetric, as we announced previously. 4 Numerical integrators with quadratures 4. Numerical algorithms The new integration methods (4), (8) and (4) can be applied directly in numerical studies of the dierential equation () only if the components of A(t) are simple enough to evaluate the integrals B (i) exactly. Otherwise, we must replace B (i) by numerical quadratures. This is necessarily so if A is known only numerically. Observe also that with the same basic quadrature we can approximate all the integrals B (i). In the following we consider two dierent families of methods based on symmetric quadrature rules: Gauss-Legendre and Newton-Cotes. The numerical schemes obtained with the rst one require less evaluations of A per step,

although cannot be applied if the matrix A(t) is known only numerically at a xed number of points. This happens, for instance, when equation () is the variational equation corresponding to a given solution x(t) of a nonlinear system _x = f(x; t). If x(t) is determined by a constant step size numerical method such as a symplectic integrator, then the Newton-Cotes formulae constitute the natural election. Let us denote A i A(t i + h ), the matrix A evaluated at each node of the quadrature rule. Then we approximate the univariate integrals B (j) up to the order considered. (i) 6-th order method with Gauss-Legendre quadrature. p The nodes of the quadrature are given by t =?vh, t =, t 3 = vh, with v = 3=. If we introduce the combinations S = A + A 3, S = A, and R = A 3? A, then we have B () = p 5 8 (5S + 8S ); B () = 36 R ; B () = 4 S : (4) (ii) 6-th order method with Newton-Cotes quadrature. Now the nodes of the quadrature for approximating B (i) are t i =? h + i h, i 4. Let us 4 form the combinations S = A + A 4, S = A + A 3, S 3 = A (even functions of h) and R = A 4? A, R = A 3? A (odd functions of h). Then B () = 9 (7S + 3S + S 3 ) B () = 7 9 R + 8R B () = 7 9 4 S + S (4) (iii) 8-th order method with Gauss-Legendre quadrature. In this case, with the same notation, we have the nodes t =?t 4 =?v h, t =?t 3 =?v h, with v = s whereas the weights are p s 3 + 6=5 ; v = 7 w =? 6 p 3? 6=5 ; 7 r r 5 6 ; w = + 5 6 6 : If S = A + A 4, S = A + A 3, R = A 4? A, R = A 3? A, then we get B () = w S (43) B () v v w S B () = v v w R B (3) v 3 v 3 w R (iv) 8-th order method with Newton-Cotes quadrature. The nodes are t i =? h + i h 6, and we form S = A + A 6, S = A + A 5,S 3 = A + A 4, S 4 = A 3, 3

R = A 6? A, R = A 5? A, R 3 = A 4? A. Then B () B () B () B (3) = 84 = 84 4 8 9 3 7 36 6 6 B B@ 4S 6S 7S 3 7S 4 @ 4R 6R 7R 3 C A (44) The point we want to stress here is that these numerical quadratures do, indeed, approximate the terms i in the Magnus series up to the required order, although this fact is not always obvious. For instance, the main error term in B (i) provided by (43) and (44) involves the coecient a 8, a 7, a 6, a 5 for i = ; ; ; 3, respectively. One could think, therefore, that the quadrature cannot reproduce correctly the term [a ; a 5 in as given by (). This is not the case, however, because the sum Q + Q in (4) can be written as Q + Q = [5B ()? 6B () ; B (3) ] + [ 63 5 B()? 84B () ;? 5 8 B() ] and the combination 5B ()?6B () does not depend on a, so that the coecient of [a ; a 5 ] in ^ is determined solely by B (), B () and B (). The numerical integration algorithms are obtained by inserting the linear relations (4)-(44) into the schemes (8) and (4), so that the resulting n-th order (n = 3; 4) schemes read ~ [n] n? i= (t k+ ) = exp(~ [n] ) (t k ): A ~ i (45) Observe that the resulting methods are then expressed in terms of A evaluated at the nodes of the quadrature rule chosen, but the total number of commutators does not change. 4. Hybrid methods For some problems it could be dicult to evaluate exactly the integrals B (i) with i, but not B (). In that case, one should consider the possibility of designing new `hybrid' integration methods which incoporate both B () and the function A(t) computed at dierent terms in order to approximate i for i >. The accuracy attained by this class of methods could improve with respect to those obtained in section 4. because now is evaluated exactly. In addition, the knowledge of B () could be used to reduce the computational cost of computing the matrix A at the quadrature points. We illustrate these hybrid methods by constructing new 4-th and 6-th order integration schemes. 4

Fourth-order. From () it is clear that + = B ()? h3 [a ; a ] + O(h 5 ); (46) so that if we consider A A(t ) and A A(t + h) (thus with only one evaluation per step) we can take the following time-symmetric approximations or h 3 [a ; a ] = h [A ; A ] + O(h 5 ) (47) h 3 [a ; a ] = h [B () ; A? A ] + O(h 5 ): (48) Substituting (47) or (48) in (46) we obtain the desired 4-th order approximation. Sixth-order. The scheme (8) can be approximated up to the required order if we compute B () and B () according to (4). This only requires two evaluations of A(t), and the resulting method improves the sixth-order scheme using only Gaussian quadratures. 4.3 Variable step size implementation In the literature, the usual strategy for constructing variable step size integration algorithms based on Magnus expansion relies on a local error estimate []. There are various generic sources of numerical errors when the Magnus expansion is implemented as a practical numerical integration method for solving equation (). The rst one is associated with the truncation of the series. The second corresponds to the replacement of the multivariate integrals appearing in by appropriate quadrature formulae. The third one is related to the approximation of a matrix exponential, a point not to be diminished. The rst two sources of error have been analyzed in [, 4], whereas the third aspect is discussed in detail in [8, 6, 8]. Once the local error introduced by the approximations is available, standard step size control techniques can be implemented so that the resulting scheme has an automatic step size selection device incorporated in the algorithm. Alternatively, the local extrapolation procedure can be easily implemented into Magnus based integration schemes. As is well known, in this technique one computes two numerical approximations to the solution, u and ^u, with u being of lower order than ^u. Then the dierence u? ^u can be used for the purpose of step size selection when the integration is continued with the higher order approximation [9]. Next we illustrate the procedure in the context of Magnus with the 6-th and 8-th order methods built in section 3. Let us consider the following approximations of order 4 and 6 to the exact solution u = e ~ [4] u ; ^u = e ~ [6]u ; (49) 5

obtained when ~ i are taken according to the 6-th order numerical scheme (8) with the appropriate quadratures. Then an estimate of the dierence can be done with the Baker-Campbell-Hausdor formula: ^u? u = = e [4] ~ [6]? e ~ u = I [6]? e ~ [4] e? ~ ^u I? exp(?~ 3? ~ 4? [ ~ [4] ; ~ [6] ] + O(h 7 )) = (~ 3 + ~ 4 + [ ~ ; ~ 3 + ~ 4 ])^u + O(h 7 ); ^u (5) so that E r k^u? u k = k (~ + I)V? V ~ ^u k; (5) with V = ~ 3 + ~ 4 evaluated according to (8). When the 8-th order scheme (4) is considered and a similar approach is followed, then (5) also gives an estimation of the dierence between the approximations of order 6 and 8, with V = ~ 5 + ~ 6. Now V cannot be computed separately from ~ + ~ 3 + ~ 4, but instead V = Q 7 + h 64 7 [B(3) ; Q 5 ]. In this case the computation of E r requires eight matrix-vector products and the evaluation of a norm, but this represents only a small amount of the total computational cost of the method. When E r computed at time t n+ is smaller than a prescribed tolerance ", then the step from t n to t n+ is accepted and one proceeds to nd the approximate solution ^u at t n+. If E r > " then the approximation at t n+ is rejected and the step from t n to t n+ is tried again with a smaller step size. In either case, the step size to be employed for a method of order m is given by [, 9] h n+ = where is a safety constant factor. 5 Conclusions " E r =(m?) h n ; (5) We have analyzed the Magnus expansion as a tool for the numerical integration of linear matrix dierential equations. Our point of departure is the recurrence relation (7)-(8) obtained in the treatment of perturbation problems, which has also proved extremely useful for establishing absolute convergence of the Magnus series. The implementation of Magnus expansion as a numerical integration algorithm involves basically three steps: (i) truncation of the innite series which gives, (ii) replacement of the multivariate integrals in the approximation ~ to by single integrals and, when necessary, by numerical quadratures, and (iii) evaluation of the matrix-vector product e ~ u. 6

By taking into account the time-symmetry of the expansion and a systematic study of the behaviour of each term i under this symmetry, we have been able to construct 6-th and 8-th order schemes which involve only 4 and dierent commutators. This represents a meaningful saving with respect to other methods previously available. In this respect, we should remark that N 3 operations are needed for evaluating one commutator, N being the dimension of the matrices involved, whereas in general no more than 5N oating-point operations are required for computing e ~ u. Thus, reducing to a minimum the number of commutators involved is of the greatest importance. In addition, we have discussed a certain number of practical issues related to Magnus based numerical integration methods, in particular the use of single analytical integrals for approximating i up to a given order; the construction of new algorithms from symmetric quadrature rules; the combination of these two approaches to form new hybrid methods, and the implementation of a novel and less costly technique of step size control based on Lie algebraic techniques. Acknowledgements: S.B. acknowledges the Ministerio de Educacion y Cultura (Spain) for a postdoctoral fellowship. The work of JR has been supported by DGICyT under contract PB97-39. FC is supported by the Collaboration Program UJI-Fundacio Caixa Castello 996 and DGES, under projects no. PB96-4 and PB97-394, respectively. References [] M.A. Abramowitz and I.A. Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions (Dover, New York, 965). [] S. Blanes, F. Casas, J.A. Oteo and J. Ros, Magnus and Fer expansions for matrix dierential equations: the convergence problem, J Phys. A: Math. Gen. 3 (998) 59-68. [3] S. Blanes, Estudio de la evolucion de sistemas dinamicos clasicos y cuanticos utilizando metodos algebraicos (Ph.D. Thesis, Universitat de Valencia, 998). [4] S. Blanes, F. Casas and J. Ros, High order integration algorithms based on Magnus expansion, preprint (998). [5] P.J. Channell and F.R. Neri, An introduction to symplectic integrators, in: J.E. Marsden, G.W. Patrick and W.F. Shadwick, Eds., Integration Algorithms and Classical Mechanics (American Mathematical Society, Providence, 996) 45-58. [6] E. Celledoni and A. Iserles, Approximating the exponential from a Lie algebra to a Lie group, DAMTP tech. report 998/NA3, University of Cambridge (998). [7] L. Dieci, R.D. Russell and E.S. Van Vleck, Unitary integrators and applications to continuous orthonormalization techniques, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. 3 (994) 6-8. 7

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