A fixed time-step variational integrator cannot preserve momentum, energy, and symplectic form simultaneously for nonintegrable systems. This barrier can be overcome by treating time as a discrete dynamic variable and deriving adaptive time-step variational integrators that conserve the energy in addition to being symplectic and momentum-preserving. Their utility, however, is still an open question due to the numerical difficulties associated with solving the governing discrete equations. In this work, we investigate the numerical performance of energy-preserving, adaptive time-step variational integrators. First, we compare the time adaptation and energy performance of the energy-preserving adaptive algorithm with the adaptive variational integrator for Keplers problem. We also study the effect of variable precision arithmetic on the energy conservation properties. Second, we apply tools from Lagrangian backward error analysis to investigate numerical stability of the energy-preserving adaptive algorithm. Finally, we consider a simple mechanical system example to illustrate our backward stability approach by constructing a modified Lagrangian for the modified equation of an energy-preserving, adaptive time-step variational integrator.
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