Abstract and subjects
Structure-preserving algorithms obtained via discrete variational principles exhibit strong promise for the calculation of guiding center test particle trajectories. The non-canonical Hamiltonian structure of the guiding center equations forms a novel and challenging context for geometric integration. To demonstrate the practical relevance of these methods, a prototypical variational midpoint algorithm is applied to an experimental magnetic equilibrium. The stability characteristics, conservation properties and implementation requirements associated with the variational algorithms are addressed. Furthermore, computational run time is reduced for large numbers of particles by parallelizing the calculation to use general-purpose graphics processing unit hardware.