Journal of Sound and Vibration (1991) 144(3), 536-538

HAMILTONIAN MECHANICS OF THE DAMPED HARMONIC OSCILLATOR

R. NAGEM 9. A. RHODES AND G. v. H. SANDRI

College of Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, U.S.A.

(Received 1 May 1990)

It has long been known that an exponential transformation can eliminate the second
highest derivative in an ordinary linear differential equation. For example, Lamb [l]
analyzes the (non-dimensionalized) harmonic oscillator with viscous damping
i+yi+x=o (1)
by introducing the reducing transformation
y(t) = ey2 x(t), y(t) = ey (i + (y/2)x). (2)
Substituting equation (2) into equation (l), we find an undamped equation for y:
L+w*y=o, OJ2= 1 - y*/4. (3)
The generalization of the reducing transformation to systems with more than one degree
of freedom is discussed in [2].
For the oscillator represented by the variable y, we have the standard Lagrangian
L(y, j) = y2/2 - w2y2/2 (4)
and using equation (2) we find

L(Y, P) = i(x, % t)

The gauge factor (total time derivative term) in equation (5) can be eliminated without
affecting the resulting equation of motion.
We can build Legendre transforms from the canonical momentum

= e y/2eV. (7)

As usual,
HY=p_vjt-L=;p;,+;oy (8)
and also

H,=p,~-i=$e-Y pi-~xpX+teyw2x2. (9)

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 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 537
It is easily verified that the canonical equations

+dH fix= _aH, (10)

ap, ax
are equivalent to equation (1). We have thus obtained a canonical transformation of the
damped harmonic oscillator into an undamped oscillator. Furthermore, we have shown
that any two oscillators with different damping constants are canonically equivalent,
including the case when one damping constant vanishes. In addition, we make several
interesting observations.
The energy of the x-oscillator is not conserved, but the x-oscillator energy added to
the dissipation is time-independent:
,
J%,ol( t) = (a+ x2)/2 + Y a( t) dt = E,,,,,(O). (11)
I0
Since the energy of the y-oscillator is conserved, we can express the total energy of the
y-oscillator locally. Thus,
Ey(t)=~j2+f~2y2=~eyr(~2+~x~+~2)=EY(0). (12)
From equations (11) and (12) we obtain
E,(r) = J%,,,(r)+ V(O)f(O)/2. (13)
The second term in equation (13) can be interpreted as due to a difference in initial
conditions between the x-oscillator and the y-oscillator; note from equation (2) that i(O)
and x(0) are not the same.
Using equations (1 l), (12) and (13), we obtain the remarkable result that the dissipation
of the x oscillator can be expressed locally as

Y
J
0
i2( t) dt = 4 (ey - 1)(~*+x2)+;Y(eyrx~-x(0)x(O)). (14)

The damped oscillator can be described by a complex variable with a first order complex
equation. Let

z=t+ix, =w-ig. (15)

Then the real and imaginary parts of the equation,

i = -iRz, (16)
are equivalent to equation (1). Also, the energy-like quantity Ep= z*z(t) = t2- y&+x*
is exponentially damped; that is, $ = - y8. This is a useful property in certain finite
difference schemes under investigation by the authors.
The Hamiltonian description of the damped oscillator has been used in attempts to
model dissipation in quantum mechanics (see, for example, [3] and [4]). The statistical
mechanics of an ensemble of damped oscillators follow from the Gibbs distribution
function

p = N exp [-p(i e- p:-;xpX+;eW2X)], (17)

where N is a normalization factor, p = l/kT, k is Boltzmans constant and T is the

thermodynamic temperature. The Hamiltonian formulation of the damped oscillator can
also be used to analyze low-temperature thermal fluctuations in RLC circuits and to
establish Pontryagin control theory for damped systems.
538 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
REFERENCES
1. H. LAMB 1931 The Dynamical Theory of Sound. E. Arnold & Co.
2. L. Y. BAHAR and H. G. KWATNY 1990 Journal of Sound and Vibration 137,433-442. Dynamic
response of some dissipative systems by means of functions of matrices.
3. I. R. SENITZKY 1960 Physical Review 119, 670-679. Dissipation in quantum mechanics. The
harmonic oscillator.
4. I. K. EDWARDS 1979 American Journal of Physics 47, 153-155. Quantization of inequivalent
classical hamiltonians.