Terrestrial Exoplanet Simulator (TES): an error optimal planetary systems integrator that permits close encounters

TL;DR

TES is a new planetary system integrator that efficiently and accurately simulates close encounters by building on the Encke method, reducing errors and runtime compared to existing methods.

Contribution

TES introduces an error-optimal, perturbation-based n-body integrator with variable step size for precise and fast simulation of planetary systems with close encounters.

Findings

TES achieves lower energy errors than direct integration methods.

TES has faster runtimes compared to ias15 in test problems.

TES is freely available for use.

Abstract

We present TES, a new n-body integration code for the accurate and rapid propagation of planetary systems in the presence of close encounters. TES builds upon the classic Encke method and integrates only the perturbations to Keplerian trajectories to reduce both the error and runtime of simulations. Variable step size is used throughout to enable close encounters to be precisely handled. A suite of numerical improvements are presented that together makes TES optimal in terms of energy error. Lower runtimes are found in all test problems considered when compared to direct integration using ias15. TES is freely available.