ISOSPECTRAL SYMPLECTIC RUNGE–KUTTA SCHEMES AS LIE GROUP METHODS

Journal article, 2026

We compare three approaches for structure preserving numerical integration of isospectral flows on quadratic Lie algebras. Such flows originate from Hamiltonian dynamics on the cotangent bundle of the Lie group. It is known, via discrete reduction theory, that symplectic Runge–Kutta methods applied to the cotangent bundle formulation induce isospectral symplectic Runge–Kutta (ISOSYRK) schemes on the Lie algebra. Here, we show that the same symplectic Runge–Kutta method, but applied to the transport formulation of the flow on the Lie group, is equivalent to the corresponding ISOSYRK scheme. We also give numerical results suggesting that the formulation on the Lie group is more efficient for schemes with two or more intermediate stages.