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Classical
Mechanics
Advanced
Classical
Mechanics
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In my fathers memory
Contents
Preface xi
vii
viii Contents
References 253
Index 257
Preface
The book has evolved from my teaching of the subject of classical mechanics
for many years. It is designed to serve as a textbook for the young postgraduate
students, researchers and teachers of theoretical physics/applied mathematics
and also students of engineering who need a good background and understand-
ing of classical mechanics. We have therefore placed emphasis on the logical
ordering of topics and appropriate formulation of the key mathematical con-
cepts with a view to imparting a clear knowledge of the basic tools in the
subject and improving the problem solving skills of the students. Complexi-
ties of the mathematical structure are kept to a minimum but greater stress
is laid on the application-side of the subject. We have tried to develop new
ideas as a smooth continuation of the preceding ones. The book is expected
to give a systematic and comprehensive coverage of the methods of classical
mechanics.
The book is organized into nine chapters and begins, in Chapter 1, with the
conceptual basis of classical mechanics to provide the necessary background
for the later chapters. This is expected to enable the students to have a grasp
on the perspectives behind the development of classical mechanics. In Chap-
ter 2 a treatment of central force problems is presented and certain typical
issues like Keplers laws, power law potentials and LaplaceRungeLenz vec-
tor are studied in much detail. Chapter 3 is concerned with the treatment
of Lagrangian dynamics. A large variety of problems is solved in this chap-
ter. Considerable emphasis is placed on the basic ideas keeping in mind the
difficulties that a student could face when being exposed to these principles
for the first time. Brief discussions of ignorable coordinates and Liouvilles
class of problems are given here. We have also included the topic of small
oscillations. In Chapter 4 a formulation of Hamiltonian dynamics is devel-
oped and Hamiltons equations of motion are derived. Also discussed in this
chapter are the Poisson brackets, their various properties and utilities. The
case of singular Lagrangians is dealt with in detail and a section is devoted
toward the treatment of higher derivative Lagrangians. Chapter 5 considers
an overview of dynamical systems and covers topics such as an analysis of lin-
ear systems, Lotka-Volterra models, Lyapunov systems, van der Pol oscillator,
limit cycles and the theory of bifurcations. Chapter 6 focuses on a detailed
treatment of action principles and discusses extended point transformations
along with different types of variations. The brachistochrone problem is stud-
ied here. Rotating frames and velocity dependent potentials are introduced in
Chapter 7 along with a treatment of the non-potential force. Its relevance in
physical phenomena is highlighted. The topic of Foucaults pendulum is also
touched upon. Chapter 8 takes up the role of symmetries and conservation
laws in mechanical systems. A discussion of the operator approach is given.
xi
xii Preface
Classical mechanics is the study of physical laws that control the motion of
material objects which are under the action of a force or system of forces. It
provides the basis for the growth of modern science. It has applications that
cover areas such as physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, biology and en-
gineering sciences. In particular, it seeks to address and explain the dynamics
of particles and rigid bodies, general classes of interactive systems, rotating
Earth problems, motion of charged objects, planetary motions around the Sun
and modeling of biological systems. Classical mechanics has an extraordinarily
rich history that began about the time of Galileo (15641642) although its ba-
sic foundations were laid later by Newton (16421727) in his famous treatise,
the Principia. He enumerated a set of three axioms which became the corner-
stone in explaining most of the qualitative features of classical mechanics. In
this chapter we discuss these laws and provide a multi-layered perspective on
them.
1
2 Advanced Classical Mechanics
x0 = x + ut, y 0 = y, z 0 = z, t0 = t (1.1)
The one-dimensional transformation as given above relates the coordinates
of any event as noted in the frame S in terms of those as recorded in the frame
S 0 . In Newtonian mechanics there is a single universal time t and the last equa-
tion of (1.1) expresses precisely this, namely, the absolute character of timea
feature that is independent of the relative motion of the two velocities.
Differentiating by t leads to
U0 = U + u (1.2)
0
0
where U = dx dx
dt and U = dt . The above equation represents the classical
velocity-addition formula.
We can generalize (1.1) to three dimensions for two systems labeled by the
coordinates ~r (x, y, z) in the frame S and r~0 (x0 , y 0 , z 0 ) in the frame S 0
where the latter is moving uniformly with velocity V~ (u, v, w) in relation to
S. To this end, we write down
~ t x0 = x + ut,
r~0 = ~r + V y 0 = y + vt, z 0 = z + wt (1.3)
with t0 = t meaning time to be absolute in that it is independent of the relative
motion of the two observers in S and S 0 . In Equation (1.3), (u,v,w) are the
components of the constant velocity V~ . Such transformations are the standard
or pure Galilean transformations and the motion is said to be invariant under
them.
4 Advanced Classical Mechanics
~t+
r~0 = R~r + V ~, ~ R3
(1.4)
along with a constant temporal translation , i.e.,
t0 = t + , R (1.5)
where R stands for a 3 3 orthogonal rotation matrix and is given by
cos cos cos sin sin cos cos sin + sin cos cos sin
R = sin cos cos cos sin sin cos sin + cos cos sin sin
sin cos sin sin cos
(1.6)
where , and are the three Eulerian angles of rotations. The domains of
these angles are 0 < 2, 0 and 0 < 2. The rotation matrix
R satisfies |R| = 1 and RRT = RT R = I.
Evidently the generalized Galilean transformations (1.4) are a set of linear
equations. Given an inertial frame S, it can be carried over to another inertial
frame S 0 in 10 possible ways. These correspond to three for spatial transla-
tions, three for rotations, one for time translation and three for boosts denoted
by the constant velocity V~ such as in (1.3). All these constitute a 10-parameter
Galilean group. Representing an element of such a group as h(R, V ~ ,
~ , ), the
composition rule is defined as
R3 = R2 R1 , w = v + R2 u, 3 = 2 + R2 1 + v1 , 3 = 1 + 2 (1.8)
At the heart of the second law lies the postulate that the forces are lin-
early additive and behave as vectors. So, in an interacting system, if n forces
F~1 , F~2 , ...F~n to act on a body of mass m, it produces an acceleration
1 ~ F~
~a = (F1 + F~2 + ... + F~n ) = (1.10)
m m
(1.10) is an extended version of Equation (1.9) and embodies the central idea
of the principle of linear superposition. The main point of the second law is
that an application of a force brings about a change in the velocity of the
object which in turn causes it to accelerate. Conversely, a time-change in
velocity accounts for the force. Knowing the force function F~ along with the
initial conditions x(t) = x0 and x(t) = x0 at time t = t0 allows one to draw a
conclusion about the trajectory of the particle that the particle actually traces
out.
Classical mechanics is characterized by two underlying principles governing
it, namely:
(i) NewtonLaplace principle of determinacy (or the deterministic law)
which states that the state of the system (comprising the position and veloc-
ity of the particle) at time t completely determines its behavior for all future
(> t) and past (< t) times; in other words, the laws of physical phenomena
are entirely deterministic and
(ii) Galilean principle of relativity which states that the law of motion
(1.9) has the same form in every inertial frame.
Suppose that a physical state of a mechanical system is known at the initial
time t0 as given by the coordinate ~r(t0 ) = r~0 and velocity ~r(t0 ) = r~0 = v~0 .
The principle of determinacy tells us that the motion given by the function
~r = ~r(t, r~0 , r~0 ) is uniquely known for all t > t0 and t < t0 . Assuming such a
function to be sufficiently smooth a couple of differentiations with respect to
t yields the form r(t0 ) = f~(t0 , r~0 , r~0 ) in which t = t0 has been set. Since t0
can be chosen arbitrarily, the equation
mj~aj = F~ ij + F~ kj (1.12)
Similarly for the k th particle, which would be influenced by the ith and j th
particles, we would have
mk~ak = F~ ik + F~ jk (1.13)
By Newtons third law the forces F~ kj and F~ jk are equal and opposite and
so when we add (1.12) and (1.13) the effects of these forces cancel leaving us
with the relation
M~a = F~ ij + F~ ik (1.15)
j k
where M = (m + m ) and the right-hand side expresses the total force that
the ith particle exerts on the j th and k th particles. The above result is easily
generalizable to the case of N interacting particles.
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 7
All
All
All
All
All All
All
All All
All
at P with respect to S 0 .
For a non-accelerating frame S 0 , clearly d~ vanishes, implying from (1.19)
that the two accelerations coincide: ~a = a~0 . Consequently the law of motion is
similar in the two frames S and S 0 , i.e., F~ = m~a = ma~0 , reflecting the inertial
character of Newtonian mechanics. On the other hand, for an accelerating
moving frame the term d~ cannot vanish and we have a modified form of the
second law of motion F~ 0 = ma~0 where the modified force F~ 0 is defined by
F~ 0 = F~ md~ . In the latter form, the additional term -md~ arising from the
0
accelerating character of the coordinate frame S is generally responsible for
the occurrence of a fictitious force term.
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 9
~v = rr + r (1.24)
~a = (r r2 )r + (r + 2r) (1.25)
where r, are unit vectors along the directions of r and . We see that Fr 6= mr
and F 6= m, Fr and F being, respectively, the components of the external
force in the r and directions.
Next, let us probe into the interplay of (1.24) and (1.25). Consider the
simple case of a particle moving uniformly along a circle with a constant
angular velocity = . Then the acceleration turns out to be simply ~a =
- 2 ~r. The negative sign implies that the acceleration is directed toward the
origin with a constant magnitude. The occurrence of acceleration is due to the
fact that the direction of the velocity vector as given by (1.24) is continuously
10 Advanced Classical Mechanics
1 2 1 1 2
2 = (r ) + (sin ) + 2 (1.27)
r2 r r r2 sin r2 sin 2
and
1 1 2 2
2 = ( ) + 2 + (1.29)
2 z 2
There also exist other coordinate frames such as the parabolic system
(, , ) wherein the correspondences are defined by
p p 1
x= cos , y = sin , z = ( ). (1.30)
2
4 4 1 2
2 = ( ) + ( ) + (1.31)
+ + 2
Proceeding now to the second step, a differential equation that follows
from (1.9) has to be formulated. In this regard, we have to identify the guiding
forces and make sure that the conditions prescribed in the given problem are
the appropriate ones for which Newtons law is applicable. In general if the
constraints are present, which are so ordinarily, then the external forces are
not known completely. To tackle this issue we have to go for an analytical
formalism that will be explained in Chapter 3.
We have already referred to the consideration of the inertial frame. Others
are
(i) The magnitude of the masses and time-distance scales should neither be
too small (like the dimensions we deal with at the microscopic level of atoms
and nuclei where the principles of quantum mechanics are applicable) nor too
large (as we encounter in the solar system or a galaxy wherein the underlying
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 11
(iii) If (Fx , Fy , Fz ) are the Cartesian components of the force F~ , then the
sum Fx dx + Fy + Fz dz is an exact differential.
(iv) F~ is only a function of position and x F~ = 0.
(v) A potential energy function V exists that has a definite value at every
point.
(vi) T + V = constant where T is the kinetic energy.
From (iv) we can write F~ as the gradient of some scalar function V . It also
points to the freedom that an arbitrary constant can be added to V without
altering F~ . Since the gradient points to the direction of increasing potential
and forces cause the system to move to a lower potential, a negative sign is
chosen to express F~ = V : in other words, the force is the negative gradient
of some potential function V . In one dimension it is simply Fx = dV dx . When
integrated it gives immediately for the work done, W = [V (b) V (a)] =
4V . We are therefore led to the following principle that the work done on
the system (positive work) increases the potential energy while the work done
by the system (negative work) decreases the potential energy.
Sometimes a force can be a combination of both conservative and non-
conservative parts. Then, of course, the work done by the non-conservative
12 Advanced Classical Mechanics
part will only contribute to the change in energy as the motion is executed
between two different points. Let us now give some examples of conservative
and non-conservative forces.
Example 1.1
The force of gravity between two objects, of masses M and m and |~r| as
the separating distance between them, is given by
GM m
F~ i = ~r, r 6= 0
r3
Around a closed path
I I
GM m GM m GM m
~r.d~r = dr = = 0, r 6= 0
r3 r 2 r
Thus gravity is a conservative force.
Example 1.2
conservative force.
Example 1.3
Z2
(c sin , c cos , h).(c sin , c cos )d = 2c2 6= 0
0
The coefficient A is the amplitude of the motion and is the initial phase at
t = 0. To get an estimate of the period of the motion T, the solution being
of a trigonometric type, we have to consider the repeated intervals of time
for which the motion is similar due to the cosine nature of the solution. The
value of T is obtained by noting that each time the phase angle changes by
2, both x and the velocity v = dxdt undergo a complete cycle of variable. In
this way corresponding to the pairs, (1 , t1 ) and (1 + 2, t + T ), we have
1 = 0 t1 + , 1 + 2 = 0 (t1 + T) + (1.34)
All
Kind Kind
All
1
V (x) = V (x0 ) + (x x0 )V 0 (x0 ) + (x x0 )2 V 00 (x0 ) +
2
1
+ (x x0 )n V (n) (x0 ) + Rn+1 (1.40)
n!
where Rn+1 corresponds to the remainder after (n + 1) terms.
If x0 is an equilibrium point, i.e., V 0 (x0 ) = 0 and if we retain terms up to
O((x x0 )2 ), then for small displacements from the equilibrium
1
V (x) V (x0 ) + (x x0 )2 V 00 (x0 ) (1.41)
2
At the point O where the potential has the minimum, V 00 (x0 ) > 0. Should we
redefine the zero to set V (x0 ) = 0, the potential V (x) simplifies to
1
V (x) (x x0 )2 V 00 (x0 ) (1.42)
2
which has the profile
q of a harmonic oscillator potential having an angular
00 (x )
frequency given by V m 0
. From such a general consideration, we therefore
conclude that any physical system near its stable equilibrium point can always
be approximated by a harmonic oscillator potential. In fact, for many physical
phenomena, whenever we consider the motion of a particle being subjected
to a potential that has one or more local minima, the harmonic oscillator
approximation gives the initial clue to the understanding of the behavior of
the system.
x + 02 x + 0 x = 0 (1.43)
where we have put = m0 relating the damping factor with the natural
frequency parameter 0 .
The linearity of Equation (1.43) suggests that we can try a solution of the
type x(t) et . Substitution in (1.43) implies that should be restricted by
r
0 2
= , = 0 1 (1.44)
2 4
A look at the form for reveals that three different cases arise according to
whether (i) < 2, (ii) = 2 or (iii) > 2. Let us consider these cases sepa-
rately.
Case (ii): = 2
F0 /m
x(t) = A cos(0 t ) + A cos(t), A = (1.49)
(02 2 )
where the first term in the right-hand side corresponds to a solution of the
simple harmonic motion, 0 being its natural frequency. The solution (1.49)
is a composition of two cosine-like terms valid at different frequencies 0 and
. We need to distinguish between the two cases when 6= 0 and = 0 .
The case 6= 0 is a simple one. We notice that the second amplitude A
in (1.49) has a finite value when 0 while it approaches zero as .
However, the situation changes drastically when approaches 0 . Here we
have to replace the solution (1.49) by a different form
F0
x(t) = P cos(0 t) + t sin(0 t) (1.50)
2m0
To arrive at (1.50) we took the representation x(t) = P cos(0 t) + Qt sin(0 t)
as a plausible solution of (1.48) and fixed the arbitrary constants P and Q
through matching of the two sides. We notice that the second term in the
right-hand side of (1.50) blows up as t . Also, because of the presence
F0 F0
of the sine term it oscillates between - 2m 0
and 2m 0
and dominates the os-
cillation of the first term as t grows. Thus by driving the system to a certain
18 Advanced Classical Mechanics
frequency value we are met with a large oscillation behavior. Such a feature
is referred to as the resonance.
z = z0 eit (1.55)
Fo
z(t) = 1 ei(t+0 ) (1.59)
m[( 2 + 02 )2 + 2 2 02 ] 2
The general solution of the linear differential equation (1.51) is the super-
position of the complementary function noted earlier in (1.45) for the damped
oscillator problem and the one obtained by projecting out the real part from
(1.59). Thus we arrive at
r
0 t 2 Fo
x(t) = Ae 2 cos[0 1 t+]+ 1 cos(t+0 )
4 m[( 2 + 02 )2 + 2 2 02 ] 2
(1.60)
A look at the above complete solution reveals that the first term, which con-
tains the initial conditions, but being appended with a damping exponential
term eventually dies out at large times and is therefore transient in character.
Therefore, the motion is ultimately governed by the steady solution which
being a particular solution of the differential equation is independent of the
initial conditions:
Fo
xsteady = 1 cos(t + 0 ) (1.61)
m[( 2 + 02 )2 + 2 2 02 ] 2
The amplitude of the steady state solution is given by |z0 | and has a max-
imum value when the quantity [( 2 + 02 )2 + 2 2 02 ] reaches a minimum.
The required condition for this to happen amounts to 2 = R 2 = 12 (22 )02
which is positive for < 2. Near = R results in a large response, in other
words, very large oscillations and the behavior of resonance is noticed.
s r
3 2 642 02 Fo 2 80 A
A= + ( ) , tan = (1.67)
80 2 4 9 2 4 m 3
where is given by = [1 ( 0 )2 ]2 .
All
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All
the mass times acceleration y of the displacement. This gives the relation
my = mg sin . Now since is the angular displacement of the bob with the
vertical axis, as it sweeps out a circular arc while it swings from one position
to another, we have the relationship y = l from the arc length formula. Hence
one deduces the equation of motion
g
+ sin = 0. (1.68)
l
A linearlized version of the above equation, when sin is approximated by , is
the form of the simple harmonic oscillator whose general solution is sinusoidal
in nature as noted in (1.33). Its period of oscillation is
s
l
T = 2 (1.69)
g
Since T here is independent of the amplitude, the isochronicity of the simple
pendulum is indicated in a first approximation.
Comparing (1.69) with the period of oscillation of the SHM as furnished
by (1.35) we notice the correspondence
r r
k g
(1.70)
m l
Numerically for the standard value of g = 9.8062m/s2 and length of 1 meter,
(1.69) yields a period of approximately 2 seconds. The general solution of
(1.68) is governed by the Jacobi elliptic function to which we shall return
later.
The potential energy of the simple pendulum reads
Zh
V = (mg)dx = mgh (1.71)
0
22 Advanced Classical Mechanics
E
where p~i is the linear momentum of the ith particle, F~i is the total external
force on the ith particle and the terms i6=j F~ij denote the remaining ones
P
due to the internal interactions: j 6= i implying that self-interactions are being
discarded.
Summing (1.74) over all the particles we get
X d~
pi X X E XX
= mi~ri = F~i + F~ij , i, j = 1, 2, ...N (1.75)
i
dt i i i i6=j
Using Newtons third law, i.e., mutually interacting particles exert equal and
opposite force forces upon themselves implying conditions like
dP~ X X E
= mi~ri = F~i = F~ , i = 1, 2, ..., N (1.77)
dt i i
where P~ is the total linear momentum of the particles, pointing to the equality
of the rate of change of the total linear momentum as equal to the total
external force F~ . If further we ignore the collective effect of the total external
forces, then the last equation integrates P to the result for the constancy of the
linear momentum for a closed system: i mi v~i = a constant vector, where
~vi = ddtr~i is the ith velocity.
~ =
X d(mi r~i )
~ri (1.78)
i
dt
where the angular momentum of each particle has been summed over. We now
~ to write down
compute the total derivative of
~
d
~ri F~iE
X X X
= ~vi mi v~i + ~ri mi r~i = (1.79)
dt i i i
where the first term in the right-hand side of the first equality vanishes be-
cause of the cross-product between similar vectors. For the second term which
receives contributions from both the parts F~iE and i6=j F~ij , i, j = 1, 2, ...N ,
P
Z Z Z Z Z
d~v
m~v . dt = F~ .~v dt = F~ .d~r = (V ).d~r = dV (1.80)
dt
Kind
FIGURE 1.4: Restriction of the particle motion in the region AB under the
influence of the potential V (x). The dotted line corresponds to V (x) = E.
In Figure 1.4 we have graphically illustrated the allowed region along with
the turning points A and B. It is easy to realize that for the motion bounded in
the region AB, the particle moves back and forth between the turning points
a and b and the motion is oscillatory in character. The period T is given by
the time taken by the particle to travel from A to B along the potential curve
and back. By symmetry this is twice the time from a to b and hence from
(1.83) we obtain
Zb
dx
T = 2m p (1.85)
E V (x)
a
where the ranges of the integral correspond to the values of the roots of the
equation V (x) = E assuming E to be known.
Example 1.4
The integral in the right-hand side is in the form of the beta function integral
R1
B(x, y) = tx1 (1 t)y1 dt with x = 14 and y = 12 . But since the beta
0
(x)(y)
function is expressible in terms of the -function through B(x, y) = (x+y) ,
the time period for the quartic oscillator is given by
1 2m 1 ( 14 )
r
T= E4 3 (1.88)
2 E ( 4 )
Consider again the problem of the simple pendulum. Here the total me-
chanical energy is conserved because the only external force, the tension T,
does no work. Note that gravity is considered an internal force. More specif-
ically, the conservation can be seen by calculating the time derivative of E
from (1.73) which gives
dE g
= ml2 ( + sin ) (1.89)
dt l
The right-hand side vanishes by using the equation of motion of the pendulum
implying that E is constant with time.
Let us use the trigonometric identity 1 cos = 2sin2 ( 2 ) to write the
energy equation as
1 2 d 2
E() = ml ( ) + 2mgl sin2 ( ) (1.90)
2 dt 2
As the pendulum oscillates in the vertical plane let 0 be the highest point
reached in the motion. Then 0 = 0 and we get from above
0
E(0 ) = 2mgl sin2 ( ) (1.91)
2
Thus since the energy is conserved we can equate E() and E(0 ) to be
led to the constraint
d 2 4g 0
( ) = (sin2 sin2 ) (1.92)
dt l 2 2
For small values of 0 , (1.92) can be approximated to
d 2 4g 02 2
( ) ' ( ) (1.93)
dt l 4 4
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 27
2 + ( p g )2 ' 0 2 (1.94)
l
d 2 g 2
( ) = (1 2 )(1 ) (1.99)
dt l
Defining = gl t and =
one ends up with the differential equation
= $t + (1.106)
d2 z
$2 z + 02 z = z 3 , z = (1.108)
d 2
Writing down expansions of both z( ) and the nonlinear frequency $ in
the form of a power series we obtain the first order in
z( ) = z0 ( ) + z1 ( ) + O( 2 ) (1.109)
$ = $0 + $1 + O( 2 ) (1.110)
Setting, as is customary in the power series approach, $0 = 0 so that $2 =
02 +20 $1 +O( 2 ), we get from (1.108) the following sequence of equations:
a3
z1 = 2
cos + 2
cos 3 sin (1.115)
160 320 80 2
30 Advanced Classical Mechanics
a3
z( ) = a cos + cos + cos 3 sin (1.116)
160 2 320 2 80 2
1 1
T = (m1 x1 2 + m2 x2 2 + ... + mN xN 2 ) + (m1 y1 2 + m2 y2 2 + ... + mN yN 2 )
2 2
1 2 2 2
+ (m1 z1 + m2 z2 + ... + mN zN ) (1.117)
2
Expressed as a sum, T reads
N
1X
T = (mi xi 2 + mi yi 2 + mi zi 2 ) (1.118)
2 i=1
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 31
On the other hand, in a conservative system, the force acting on the system
being derivable from a potential function V (x) as its negative gradient, we
can write for each component
V V V
Fx1 = , Fx2 = , ..., F xN = (1.119)
x1 x2 xN
V V V
Fy1 = , Fy2 = , ..., F yN = (1.120)
y1 y2 yN
V V V
Fz1 = , Fz2 = , ..., FzN = (1.121)
z1 z2 zN
In a short-hand notation these are simply
V V V
Fxi = , Fyi = , Fzi = , i = 1, 2, ..., N (1.122)
xi yi zi
Employing the Cartesian components of the force-potential relationship as in
above, Newtons laws for the x, y and z components can be put out in the
manner
V V V
mi xi = , mi yi = , mi zi = i = 1, 2, ..., N (1.123)
xi yi zi
From (1.118), since
T T T
= mi xi , = mi yi , = mi zi (1.124)
xi yi zi
we can equivalently express (1.123) in terms of a set of the following three
equations:
d T V d T V d T V
( )= , ( )= , ( )= i = 1, 2, ..., N
dt xi xi dt yi yi dt zi zi
(1.125)
In this way we have been able to express the Cartesian forms of Newtonian
equations of motion in terms of the energies of the system rather than the
forces themselves. To ensure a more compact representation of the above
equations it is instructive to introduce a Lagrangian function defined as the
difference of the kinetic energy (which is a function of velocities) and po-
tential energy (which is a function of position in a conservative system) i.e.,
L = T V . L is thus a mixed function of coordinates and velocities.
Through the use of L, Equation (1.126) acquires the following forms:
d L L d L L d L L
( )= , ( )= , ( )= i = 1, 2, ..., N (1.126)
dt xi xi dt yi yi dt zi zi
Note that like the Newtonian equations, Lagrangian formulation also yields a
set of second-order differential equations. The concept of a Lagrangian func-
tion is fundamental and taken as a reference point in the development of an
32 Advanced Classical Mechanics
1.11 Summary
By enunciating Newtons three laws of motion we addressed various as-
pects of classical mechanics that are inherent in these laws such as the con-
cept of inertial frame, Galilean invariance and the homogeneous and isotropic
character of the Newtonian Universe. We discussed the process of seeking the
Conceptual basis of classical mechanics 33
Exercises
1. For the Earth whose radius at the equator is R = 6400 kms and angular
velocity rotating on its axis given by = 7.3 105 rad/s, show that the
centripetal acceleration is 0.034 m/s2 .
2. A bird takes a spiral path to its nest in a manner that the radial distance
reduces at a constant rate r = a bt, while the angular speed increases
at apconstant rate = t. Show that the speed as a function of time is
v = b2 + (a bt)2 2 t2 .
3. Generalize the result (1.15) to the case of N -interacting particles.
4. Show that the expressions of the kinetic energy in spherical polar and
cylindrical coordinates are respectively given by
1
T = m(r2 + r2 2 + r2 sin2 2 ) (1.130)
2
1
T = m( 2 + 2 2 + z 2 ) (1.131)
2
5. Show that a particular solution of Laplaces equation 2 = 0 which is
independent of has a general solution
X
= (An rn + Bn rn1 )Pn (cos ) (1.132)
n=1
where Pn (cos ) are the usual Legendre polynomials. Discuss the case when
6= 0.
6. Identify the components of the momentum and angular momentum
which are conserved in the field of an infinite homogeneous plane, infinite
34 Advanced Classical Mechanics
x = y, y = x 2 y (1.134)
The historical basis for central force problems comes from Keplers three laws
of planetary motion. These also go by the names of law of equal areas, law
of ellipse and law of harmonics. Kepler announced the first two laws in 1609
while the third was stated in 1619 to get an insight into the behavior of the
then known planets orbiting around the Sun. The statements of the three
Keplers laws are
1. Equal areas are swept out in equal intervals of time by the line segment
drawn from a planet to the Sun.
2. The locus of a planetary orbit is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the
foci.
3. The square of the periodic times of the planets is proportional to the
cubes of the major axes of their orbits.
But we owe to Newton for a fuller understanding of these laws as explained
in his Principia in 1687. Taking them in order, the law of equal areas focuses
on the speed of the planet: it is fastest when it is closest to the Sun while it
is slowest when it is most distant from the Sun. The law of ellipse points to
the elliptical path that a planet traces out while moving around the Sun with
the Sun in one of its foci. The law of harmonics provides a comparison of the
orbital period (T) and radius of the orbit (R) as compared to other planets
T2
in the family. Quite interestingly, the ratio R 3 turns out to be of nearly the
35
36 Advanced Classical Mechanics
examples of the central force like Newtons inverse square law of gravitation
and Coulombs electrostatic force between two charges, the force function F (r)
is proportional to the inverse square of the distance and is negative. However,
in the case of the spherical harmonic oscillator, F (r) is linearly proportional to
the distance and negative as well. By Bertrands theorem1 it can be established
that these two force functions are the only possible forms of the central force
fields having orbits that are all stable and closed. In the central force problem
the underlying force acts in a direction that is toward or away from a fixed
point called the force center. As such, the torque ~rF~ on the particle about
the force center vanishes resulting in the constancy of the angular momentum
~ = ~r(m~v ) = ~r~
p.
To dig into this issue a little further, let us consider specifically two parti-
cles m1 and m2 in the presence of the gravitational field of a certain particle
of mass m. We assume that both m1 and m2 are positioned at the same dis-
tance r from m. In such a case, these particles would experience a force due to
1 The essence of Bertrands theorem is that the gravitational or electrostatic potential and
the radial oscillator potential are the only types belonging to central force problems with the
feature that all bound orbits are also closed. For a fuller discussion see E.T. Whittaker, A
Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies, Cambridge University
Press, London (1988).
Central force problems 37
(r~2 r~1 )
F1 = Gm2p m1a , (2.6)
|r~1 r~2 |3
(r~1 r~2 )
F2 = Gm1a m2p , (2.7)
|r~1 r~2 |3
2 We follow M.V. Berry, Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation, Cambridge University
All
All All
All
All
FIGURE 2.1: Two particles at points P1 and P2 with respect to the fixed
point O.
~
~ = lE
C (2.10)
m
where ~lE is the angular momentum of Earth about the Sun. Thus ~lE is a
conserved quantity. As such
d~r ~
~r ~ = lE
=C (2.11)
dt m
The sectorial area A being given by 12 |~r d~r|, it follows from (2.10) and (2.11)
that
dA ~
2 =C~ = | lE | (2.12)
dt m
In other words, equal areas are swept out in equal intervals of time which
is Keplers first law. That the motion lies on a plane is because ~r remains
perpendicular to ~lE :
d~r ~lE
~r [~r ] = ~r = 0. (2.13)
dt m
Next from (2.9) and (2.11) we can write
~
d(C d~
r
dt ) ~ ~a = GM d~r
=C ~r (~r ) (2.14)
dt r2 dt
Using the vector triple product formula
~ (B
A ~ C
~ = B(
~ A~ C)
~ C(
~ A~ B)
~ (2.15)
on integrating (2.14) we obtain
~ d~r = ( GM ~r + D)
C ~ (2.16)
dt r
where D ~ is some constant vector. Taking now a dot product with ~r, (2.16)
becomes
dr ~ ~
(~r ) C = GM r + ~r D (2.17)
dt
Since D~ is arbitrary, we can choose its direction to coincide with the polar
~ = rD cos . Using now (2.11) we easily derive
axis. Thus we can represent ~r D
the polar representation of a conic as given by
%
r= (2.18)
1 + e cos
40 Advanced Classical Mechanics
2
lE D
where the parameters %, e are % = GM m2 and e = GM . For a planetary orbit,
(2.18) is a closed curve such as an ellipse with the focus at the origin and e its
eccentricity. In this way we arrive at a mathematical form of Keplers second
law.
The points = 0 and = are the ends where (2.18) crosses the polar
axis. Adding the corresponding values of we determine the length 2a of the
major axis of the ellipse to be
1 1 C2
2a = %( + )=2 (2.19)
1+e 1e GM (1 e2 )
where % has been expressed in terms of C by using (2.10). Now the area of an
ellipse being
A = ab, where b is related to the length a of the semi-major axis
by b = a 1 e2 and, from (2.12), the period for one complete revolution to
be given by T = 2A
C , we obtain, on substituting for C from (2.19), the formula
r
a3
T = 2 (2.20)
GM
2
The result (2.20) has the implication that T
a3 behaves as a constant given by
4 2
GM which corresponds to Keplers third law.
The conservation of the angular momentum has the implication that the
orbital plane, given by the equation ~l ~r = 0, is the one on which the motion
is confined and is normal to the angular momentum vector ~l. Of course to
determine the motion completely we also need to define the initial position
vector ~r(0) and the initial velocity vector ~v (0) on such a plane.
Let us assume |~l| 6= 0. If (r, ) are the coordinates of the particle in the
orbital plane with respect to a fixed origin, then Newtons equations of motion
in plane polar coordinates read
d2 u m
2
+ u = F (u1 ) 2 2 (2.25)
d l u
(2.25) provides the differential equation of the orbit for a particle under the
control of a central force of a general form P ( u1 ).
Sometimes it is useful to display the angular momentum variable explicitly.
In the presence of a potential V (r) given by F (r) = dV
dr , the radial equation
acquires the form
d l2 dU (l, r)
mr = [ + V (r)] mr = (2.26)
dr 2mr2 dr
and we see that the motion is influenced by an effective potential
l2
U (l, r) = + V (r) (2.27)
2mr2
The first term in the right-hand side of (2.27) is the effect of a centrifugal
l2
barrier whose magnitude is given by mr 3.
Integrating (2.26) with respect to time t, the total energy E that is constant
in time is given by
1 2 l2 1
E= m|~r| + + V (r) = m|~r |2 + U (l, r) (2.28)
2 2mr2 2
2
l
where 2mr 2 is the centrifugal term Vcf . For the Newtonian inverse square law,
All
All
AllAll
All
FIGURE 2.2: A graphical description of the function U (l, r) against Vef and
V (r).
where = 12 ( 2). The above potential is attractive for > 0 but repulsive
for < 0. Corresponding to (2.31), U (l, r) is given by
l2
U (l, r) = (2.32)
2mr2 r
1/(2)
l2
1 1 2m
i.e. U () = , a= (2.33)
2ma2 2 l2
l2 a2 1
V (r) = (2.34)
2m r
We speak of a bounded motion if r = rmin and r = rmax exist where r =
0. From (2.28), since E = 12 mr2 + U (l, r) for all r, we have the condition
U (l, r) E for a physical bounded motion. In Figure 2.2, the curve U (l, r) is
seen to descend to a minimum with a finite negative value implying a range
of bounded orbits.
Among the orbits the circular ones are, from the mathematical point of
view, the simplest to pick. For a particle in circular motion of radius r = r
2
with a constant acceleration vr toward its center, v being the magnitude of its
velocity given by v = r, it is clear that the following balancing equation holds:
F (r) + mr2 = 0
l2
i.e. F (r) + = 0 (2.35)
mr3
where F (r) is the force at r = r.
For the stability of the circular orbit we enquire for a minimum of the
effective potential U (l, r) and hence for the following two conditions to hold:
dU (l, r) d2 U (l, r)
U 0 (l, r) = 0, U 00 (l, r) >0 (2.36)
dr dr2
at r = r. Note that (2.35) is also consistent with seeking a derivative of U (l, r)
with respect to r and putting r = r remembering that the force F (r) is given
by the negative gradient of the potential.
Writing
d2
mr = m 2 (r r) = U 0 (l, r) (2.37)
dt
dU (l,r)
where U 0 (l, r) = dr , let us expand the right-hand side as
This gives
d2
m (r r) (r r)U 00 (l, r) (2.38)
dt2
which we recognize as the familiar equation of the undamped oscillator, im-
plying stability of the circular orbit for U 00 (l, r) > 0. Since
l2 3l2
U 0 (l, r) =
3
+ V 0 (r), U 00 (l, r) = + V 00 (r) (2.39)
mr mr4
we then have a small amplitude oscillation with an angular frequency given
by
r r
U 00 (l, r) V 00 (r) + 3l2 /mr4
= = (2.40)
m m
If we eliminate l from the condition U 0 (l, r) = 0 then we have another repre-
sentation for
s
3V 0 (r)
1
= V 00 (r) + (2.41)
m r
The period of the orbit is given by
2
T =r h i (2.42)
1 00 (r) 3V 0 (r)
m V + r
dV
F = < 0.
dr
and implies r1 < 0. So we must have > 0.
The condition of stability of a circular orbit as just deduced is U 00 (l, r) > 0.
0
From (2.40) and (2.41) it gives V 00 (r) + 3V r(r) > 0. As a consequence we work
out the condition
3
( + 1)r2 + ()r1 > 0
r
or, [( + 1) 3] > 0
or, ( 2) > 0
Since > 0 we are led to the condition < 2.
Central force problems 45
Making a change of variable by setting u = r in (2.31) where is a real
and arbitrary constant gives dr = (u1+ )du. As a result the integral is
transformed to
Z
du
(u) = q (2.44)
2m
u2 l2 (Eu 2+2
+ u2+2 )
1
u2
The above form is concerned with the power law potential u . Up to certain
adjustments of the constants it compares interestingly with the representation
(2.43) pointing to a kind of duality between the potentials r and u .
62(1994)310.
46 Advanced Classical Mechanics
l2 1 l2 1
rper = , rapo = (2.50)
m 1 + e m 1 e
Different cases of orbits arise depending on the various possibilities of e.
Before we distinguish them it is worthwhile to have a look at the energy
equation (2.28). For the Coulomb potential the expression for E reads
1 2 l2
E= m|~r| + 2
(2.51)
2 2mr r
and implies an effective potential
l2
U (l, r) = (2.52)
2mr2 r
It gives for the rate of change of radial velocity
r
dr 2
= (E U (l, r)) (2.53)
dt m
We therefore conclude that the maximum radial velocity is attained when
U (l, r) is a minimum.
Writing dr dr d
dt = d dt , one can transform E to a form
l2 1 dr m
E= [ ( )2 + 1 2 2 r] (2.54)
2mr2 r2 d l
dr
Evaluating d from (2.49) which gives
dr l2 e sin
= (2.55)
d m (1 + e cos )2
Central force problems 47
and using the explicit form for r, a little calculation yields a rather simple
representation for E:
m 2 2
E= (e 1) (2.56)
2l2
Notice no -dependence in (2.56) which is as it should be because energy
is conserved for the system under consideration. The interplay between the
eccentricity e and the energy is thus evident in determining the character of
the conic. We summarize the different possibilities for the orbits:
Ellipse (bounded or trapped orbits) : e < 1 = E < 0,
Circle (special case of an ellipse) : e = 0 = E < 0,
Hyperbola (unbounded orbits) : e > 1 = E > 0,
Parabola (open orbit) : e = 1 = E = 0.
b2 < a2 . Note that the geometric center of the closed orbit of the ellipse is not
l2 e
at the origin but shifted to the point x = m 1e2 . We have here a periodic
motion in which the radial distance moves between rapo and rper . It can be
shown that one of the foci is at the origin (see Exercise 3).
From (2.56) we can read off for the range of the energy
m 2
< E < 0. (2.58)
2l2
Note that the circle is an extreme case of the ellipse to which the latter degen-
2
erates to when e = 0. Here E = m 2l2 . In the case of gravitation the circular
orbit is due to a balance between the centrifugal force and the gravitational
force. The radial velocity has a zero-value and there is only the transverse
circular velocity having the value a , where a is the semi-major axis of the
p
which corresponds to the polar equation of an ellipse having its center at the
origin and semi-axes given by the pair (t+ , t ) shown in (2.65).
d ~r
p ~l) = F (r) (~r p~)
(~ (2.70)
dt r
Now using the standard formula for a vector triple product the right-hand
side turns out to be
F (r)
=m [~r(~r ~r) r2~r ] (2.71)
r
6 P.G.L. Leach and G.P. Flessas, Generalizations of LaplaceRungeLenz vector, J. Non.
44 (1976) 1123.
50 Advanced Classical Mechanics
d d ~r
p ~l) = mF (r)r2 ( )
(~ (2.73)
dt dt r
The non-integrability is evidently due to the presence of an arbitrary force
term F (r) in the right-hand side of (2.73). However, for the specific case of
a repulsive force which varies inversely as the square of the distance as given
by F (r) = r2 , the system is rendered solvable. In fact, the above equation
reduces to a total derivative form, namely,
d ~r
p ~l m ) = 0
(~ (2.74)
dt r
~
implying conservation of a vector A defined by
~ = p~ ~l m~r
A (2.75)
~ is called the LRL vector. In particular if ~l points to the z-direction desig-
A
~ in the xy-plane are
nated as lz , then the components of A
x y
Ax = py lz m , Ay = px lz m (2.76)
r r
where px and py are the components of the momentum in the xy-plane.
A couple of observations are in order:
(i) From the form of A ~ ~l = 0. Hence A
~ it follows that A ~ is orthogonal to
~l pointing that ~l lies in the orbital plane.
(ii) We can express the energy E explicitly in terms of the magnitudes of
the A~ and ~l vectors. To this end we square the expression of A ~ to write
A2 = |~p ~l m~r|2 = p2 l2 + m2 2 2m l2 (2.77)
r
where we have used the vector identities (~a ~b)(~c d) ~ = (~b d)(~
~ a ~c)(~b~c)(~a d)
~
~ ~
and ~a (b ~c) = (~a b) ~c. Noticing that for our inverse square law for the
p2
force implies a potential V (r) = r , we have the total energy as E = 2m r
2
which can be reexpressed in terms of A as
A2 m2 2
E= (2.78)
2ml2
This gives the relation between the energy and the square of the magnitude
of the LRL vector.
Central force problems 51
2.9 Summary
In this chapter we looked at the general class of central force problems
noting the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass and the related
issue of the principle of equivalence. We briefly provided a derivation of Ke-
plers three laws and then gave a discussion of the properties and equations
of orbits. A study of the general class of power law potentials was our next
point of inquiry in which we examined, in particular, the stability condition
of the entire class of power law potentials and mapping of the general class
of potentials. The specific cases of the Coulomb and isotropic potentials were
illustrated and finally a treatment of LaplaceRungeLenz vector was given.
Exercises
1. Demonstrate the equivalence of the integral (2.46) with (2.44).
2. Show from (2.43) that the case = 2 leads to orbits for a Coulomb
potential. Also address the dual case of the oscillator potential.
3. Show for the ellipse equation as written down in (2.57) one of the foci
is at its origin.
4. Determine the transverse velocity of the circular orbit which results due
to a balance between the centrifugal and the gravitational forces.
p ~l) = (~r p~) ~l = l2 , show that the
5. Using the vector identity ~r (~
expression (2.75) represents a conic by taking a dot product with ~r.
Chapter 3
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics
53
54 Advanced Classical Mechanics
~ (r~j , v~j , t) = 0, j = 1, 2, .., N (3.3)
where v~j ~rj are the velocities. In the absence of velocities, (3.3) is called a
finite or geometric constraint:
~ (r~j , t) = 0, j = 1, 2, .., N (3.4)
where the coefficients a~j are not all vanishing and F is a scalar function of ~r
and t. In the stationary case, t~ = 0 in (3.4) while in (3.5) F = 0 and a~j are
functions of position only. A system is called scleronomic if it is subjected to
only stationary constraints; otherwise, it is called rheonomic.
Apart from the type (3.3) which are called bilateral constraints, there can
be unilateral constraints which appear as inequalities.
~ (r~j , v~j , t) 0
(3.6)
certainly not reducible to the holonomic types. Such constraints are therefore
nonholonomic and the system subjected to them is a nonholonomic system.
Some examples given below will help us to clarify the above issues.
Example 3.1
For the simple plane pendulum problem the equations of constraints are
x2 + z 2 = l2 and y = 0 where l is the length of the string and the pendulum
bob is restricted to swing in the xzplane.
Here the constraint is holonomic and scleronomic. If, however, the length
of the pendulum changes with time due to seasonal effects, then we have a
time-dependent rheonomic constraint.
Example 3.2
Example 3.3
All
All
All
All
Example 3.4
Example 3.5
Let us consider a rolling disc problem. With the angles defined as shown
in Figure 3.1, we can write down the constraint equations
x sin y cos = 0
x cos y sin = r
The first one speaks of no lateral motion while the second one points to
pure rolling. In differential terms these are dx = r cos d, dy = r sin d
which are nonintegrable. We conclude that the problem is nonholonomic.
Once the constraint equations have been correctly identified it proves useful
to set up a set of n independent coordinates, qi (i = 1, 2, .., n), called gener-
alized coordinates, to describe the configuration of a physical system. These
generalized coordinates, whose total number equals the number of degrees
of freedom available for the system, are quite general in character and need
not always conform to any special type like the Cartesian or polar or say,
parabolic coordinates. For the plane pendulum problem, where the constraints
are x2 + z 2 = l2 and y = 0, any one of x or z or (the angle which the string
makes with the vertical) may serve as the generalized coordinate.
There is no general rule for adopting of a particular set of generalized
coordinates. As to which one needs to be employed depends a great deal upon
an educated guess and also upon the conditions of a problem.
58 Advanced Classical Mechanics
In the following section let us derive an expression for the kinetic energy
in terms of the generalized coordinates q1 , q2 , ..., qn .
where d~ri stands for the displacement and F~ij represents the constraint force
on the ith particle due to the j th particle and we ignore the self-forces.
To consider all the particles in the rigid body, we need to sum over i in
(3.7) and get for the total work done
X XX
W = Wi = F~ij .d~
ri (3.8)
i i j
F~ij = F~ji
For a rigid body since the inter-particle distances are fixed we have (~ ri
r~j )2 = constant. Taking differential it yields (~ri r~j ).(d~
ri dr~j ) = 0. From
Newtons third law, F~ij acts along the relative vector r~i r~j which stands for
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 59
the direction along the line joining the particles i and j. It is thus implied
from (3.9) that W = 0. Hence, the total work done by the forces of constraint
in a rigid body is zero.
In all the above examples we found that the total work done by the force(s)
of constraint is zero. However, the forces of constraint can do work in certain
situations like the following one. Consider the case of the simple pendulum
whose length l is changing with time: l = l(t). Here it is obvious that the bob
traces out a different route than the usual circular arc. The displacement of
the bob is therefore not normal to the direction of T , the force of constraint.
So the work done by T is non-zero.
How to treat to time-independent as well as time-varying constraints in a
consistent framework ? Fortunately we have a way out. We invoke the concept
of an infinitesimal virtual displacement which is consistent with the forces and
constraints operating on the system at a given instant of time. This leads to
the corresponding definition of virtual work. Here the word virtual has the
underlying meaning that no passage of real time is involved during the dis-
placements taken. In other words, we freeze the system at a certain point
of time and think of virtual displacements r~i (i = 1, 2, ..., ) that are consis-
tent with the conditions of the constraints. Some arbitrariness is, of course,
involved in the choice of the direction of r~i . This is exploited by the principle
of virtual work which we state below:
c
The total virtual work done by forces of constraint F~i is zero for any vir-
tual displacement.
Mathematically it means
N
X
W c = F~jc . r~j = 0 (3.10)
j=1
Let us take a dot product of both sides of the equation of motion (3.2) by the
virtual quantity r~i . It gives
N
X N
X N
X
mi r~i . r~i = F~ia . r~i + F~ic . r~i (3.11)
i=1 i=1 i=1
By virtue of the postulate (3.10) the second term in the right-hand side drops
out and we are left with the sum
N
X
(F~ia mi r~i ). r~i = 0 (3.12)
i=1
reversed effective forces that act on each particle of the body and external forces keep the
system in equilibrium. The form as given by (3.12) was given by Joseph Lagrange later.
60 Advanced Classical Mechanics
principle is its ability to get rid of the constraint forces. In the absence of
any constraint, one can look upon r~i as independent which means that their
coefficients have to vanish in (3.12). The resultant equations are nothing but
Newtons equations of motion for unconstrained motion. However, if the mo-
tion is a constrained one, as is indeed so in the presence of the forces of
constraint, then r~i are not independent and we cannot have the coefficients
to be zero. We then have to deal with the single equation (3.12) whose nature
can be very complicated.
As an application of DAlemberts principle let us again focus attention
on the plane pendulum problem. The generalized coordinate is chosen as .
So the work done by the applied force mg is (mg sin )(l) where is the
virtual displacement that undergoes. The acceleration of the bob is l. We
thus have from (3.12)
yielding
d
(ml2 ) = mgl sin (3.15)
dt
The left-hand side of (3.15) is the rate of change of the angular momentum of
the bob about the point of support which, in the absence of gravity, remains
constant even when the length of the pendulum is changing with time.
and i, k = 1, 2, ..., n.
An interesting off-shot of (3.21) is that, in the scleronomic case, both the
coefficients ai and a0 drop out and we are left with a homogeneous function of
the second degree of the generalized velocities for the kinetic energy function:
n
1 X
T = aik qi qk T2 (say) (3.22)
2
i,k=1
For if the above determinant were to vanish, we would be faced with a set
of homogeneous linear equations of the type
n
X
aik xk = 0, i = 1, 2, ..., n (3.24)
k=1
62 Advanced Classical Mechanics
which has a non-zero real solution. Now if we multiply the left-hand side of
(3.24) by xi and sum over i we would obtain
N N n
!2
X X X r~j
0= aik xi xk = mj xi (3.25)
j=1 i=1
qi
i,k=1
Since r~j (xj , yj , zj ), (3.26) reflects that the columns of the following Jaco-
bian matrix J are linearly dependent:
x x1 x1
q
1
q ... qn
y11 y21 y
q1 q2 ... qn1
z1 z1 z1
q
1 q2 ... q
n
... ... ... ...
[J]
...
(3.27)
x ... ... ...
xn xn
q1 q2 ... qn
n
yn yn y
q1 q2 ... qnn
zn zn
q1 q2 ... z n
qn
In other words the rank of [J] is less than n. Thus we arrive at a contra-
diction since according to the definition of generalized coordinates we have n
degrees of freedom and now we find that < n. Hence (3.23) holds. Further
T2 0 since T2 stands for the kinetic energy in the stationary situation with
the equality sign occurring when qi = 0, i = 1, 2, ..., n.
up a new procedure for handling particle dynamics: the main difference with
its Newtonian counterpart is that the energies of the system are addressed
rather than the forces themselves.
Looking at the expression (3.12) of DAlemberts principle we see that the
works done by the applied forces and inertial forces under a virtual displace-
ment r~j (j = 1, 2, ...N ) are respectively given by
N
X (a)
W (a) = F~j . r~j (3.28)
j=1
and
N
X
W (in) = (mj r~j ). r~j (3.29)
j=1
Plugging (3.30) into (3.28) and (3.29), W (a) and W in acquire the forms
n
X
W (a) = Qj qj (3.31)
j=1
where
N
X (a) r
~i
Qj = F~i . (3.32)
i=1
q j
and
n X
N
X r~i
W in = (mi r~i ). qj (3.33)
j=1 i=1
qj
d
Lemma 2: The operators dt and q j are interchangeable in the sense
d r~i d~
ri
= (3.38)
dt qj qj dt
Proof: The left-hand side of (3.38) can be expanded as
n
2 r~i
X 2 r~i
= qm
+
m=1
qm qj tqj
" n #
X r~i r~i
= qm +
qj m=1 qm t
d~
ri
= = right-hand side of (3.38)
qj dt
d
Next operating by dt upon (3.35) and using (3.36) we get
N
d T X
r~i d r~i
= mi r~i . + mi r~i .
dt qj i=1
qj dt qj
N
X r~i
= mi r~i . + mi r~i . (r~i )
i=1
qj qj
N
" N
#
X
r~i X 1 2
= mi r~i . + mi r~i
i=1
qj qj i=1 2
N
X r~i T
= mi r~i . + (3.39)
i=1
qj qj
All
All All
All
All
All
~ = mr~1 + M r~2
R
m+M
For the present binary system, the kinetic and potential energies being
1 2 1 2
T = m r~1 + M r~2
2 2
GmM
V =
|r~1 r~2 |
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 69
All
All
All All
All
All
All All
where = (q4 q1 q2 q3 2 )1 .
2 2 2 2
70 Advanced Classical Mechanics
To this end, we write down for the Lagrangian L the partial derivatives
with respect to qj and qj
L
= mqj (q4 2 q1 2 q2 2 q3 2 )1/2 + eAj ,
qj
= mqj + eAj ,
4
L X Ak
= e qk
qj qj
k=1
dA P4 Aj
Further writing dtj = k=1 qk qk , Aj being functions of position only, it
follows from the above that
4
d X Aj Ak
m (qj ) = e qk , j = 1, 2, 3
dt qk qj
k=1
where 2 = (q4 2 q1 2 q2 2 q3 2 )1 .
On the other hand, for q4 , we have
L
= mq4 + eA4
q4
4
L X Ak
= qk
q4 q4
k=1
P4
Here writing dA
dt =
4
k=1
A4
qk qk and using Lagranges equation of motion for
q4 we find the expression
4
d X Ak A4
m (q4 ) = e qk
dt q4 qk
k=1
.
q + 02 q + 0 q = 0
As discussed in Chapter 1, the above equation represents the one for a damped
0
oscillator. If we set q = e 2 t z, it can be transformed to the harmonic
2
oscillator form z + 2 z = 0 where 2 = (1 4 )02 > 0 for < 2.
It needs to be pointed out that just by adding a damping term m0 q to
the Lagrangian of the harmonic oscillator, namely, LHO = m 2 2 2
2 (q 0 q ) will
not produce the equation of motion for the damped oscillator. The reason is
that the additional term m0 q is just a total time-derivative of the quantity
m 2
2 0 q and hence leads to the same equation of motion. The correct La-
grangian must contain an explicit time-dependence in an overall exponential
factor as given above.
n X n
X L d L L L
= qj + qj qj + qj
j=1
qj dt qj j=1
qj qj
= 0 (3.46)
d L L
where we have exploited Lagranges equations dt qj = qj and noted that
L
for a scleronomic system t = 0. Hence we conclude that
n
X L
qj L = constant of motion (3.47)
j=1
qj
called the Routhian. Noting that the equations (3.50) are linear in q1 , q2 , ...qk ,
we can always express q1 , q2 , ...qk in terms of the coordinates qk+1 , qk+2 , ..., qn ,
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 73
Comparing (3.56) and (3.57) and noting that the variations are arbitrary
independent we get the following set of consistency conditions:
L R
= , r = k + 1, k + 2, ...n
qr qr
L R
= , r = k + 1, k + 2, ...n (3.58)
qr qr
R
qr = , r = 1, 2, ...k
r
The first two equations of (3.58) can be put together to read
d R R
= , r = k + 1, k + 2, ...n (3.59)
dt qr qr
74 Advanced Classical Mechanics
We easily see from (3.59) that from a knowledge of the Routhian R, the
coordinates qk+1 , qk+2 , ...qn can be determined in terms of t. Having got them,
the remaining ones can be obtained from (3.60).
Example 3.6
1 q1 2 1
T = 2 + q2 2 , V = c + dq22
2 a + bq2 2
1 q1 2 1
L= 2 + q2 2 c dq22
2 a + bq2 2
where is a constant.
The Routhian is given by
L
R = L q1
q1
L
Inserting the forms for L and q1 ,
R takes the form
1 1 1
R = q2 2 d + b 2 q22 c a 2
2 2 2
which involves the coordinate q2 and velocity q2 only.
For such an R, Equation (3.59) gives
q2 + (2d + b 2 )q2 = 0
1 bA2
q1 (a + bA2 )t sin[(2d + b 2 )1/2 t + ] + B
2 4(2d + b 2 )1/2
Example 3.7
m 2
T = (r + r2 2 )
2
V =
r
yielding for the Lagrangian
m 2
L=T V = (r + r2 2 ) +
2 r
Since L does not contain , it is an ignorable coordinate:
L
= constant = l(say)
or, ml2 = l
l2
mr = 2
mr3 r
whose first integral gives the conservation of total energy E :
1 2 1 l2
mr + + V = constant = E
2 2 mr2
as we have already know from the central force problem. The energy equation
can be expressed in the integral form
Z r
dr
t= 1/2
l2
2
m E V 2mr 2
r0
or more explicitly
Z s Z s Z s
1 (q1 ) 2 (q2 ) n (qn )
d(q1 ) = d(q2 ) + 1 = ... = d(qn ) + n1
d1 (q1 ) d2 (q2 ) dn (qn )
(3.74)
In this way the variables become separated. Multiplying (3.74) by u1 , u2 , ..., un
for each respective value of i = 1, 2, ...n and adding we get
n Z Z P
X r
j uj
uj dqj = 2 dt + c = 2t + c (3.75)
j=1
dj u
Example 3.8
Example 3.9
Here
1 1
T = mv 2 = (x2 + y 2 )
2 2
0 0
V = 0 = p p
r r (x c)2 + y 2 (x + c)2 + y 2
Let us set r0 = q1 + q2 and r = q1 q2 . Then T and V can be seen in the
forms
q1 2 q2 2
1 2
T = (q1 q22 ) 2 +
2 q1 c2 c2 q22
q1 q2
V = ( + 0 ) 2 + ( 0
)
q1 q22 q12 q22
So the problem is Liouvilles type.
Example 3.10
qi = Ai et , i = 1, 2, ..., n (3.85)
where Ai s are constants which could be complex, yield the following full set
of n equations:
(c11 2 + d11 )A1 + (c12 2 + d12 )A2 + ... + (c1n 2 + d1n )An = 0
(c21 2 + d21 )A1 + (c22 2 + d22 )A2 + ... + (c2n 2 + d2n )An = 0
....
(cn1 2 + dn1 )A1 + (cn2 2 + dn2 )A2 + ... + (c2n 2 + dnn )An = 0 (3.86)
82 Advanced Classical Mechanics
with varying amplitudes but having the same period. The reality of 2 can be
checked by substituting the above form of qi in the equations of motion (3.84)
directly, splitting Ai s into real and imaginary parts and finding straightfor-
wardly that the imaginary part vanishes. In fact, for a positive definite po-
tential energy, is real too but it becomes purely imaginary for a negative
definite potential energy.
Using (3.89) the equations of motion emerge as
n
X
(dij 2 cij )Aj = 0, i = 1, 2, ..., n (3.90)
j=1
Noting that both the matrices dij and cij are symmetric, if we multiply from
(B) (A)
the left the first equation by Ai and the second equation by Aj and sum
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 83
respectively over i and j we observe that the terms involving dij drop out on
subtracting leaving us with the relation
n X
n
(A) (B)
X
2 2
(A B ) (Ai cij Aj ) = 0 (3.93)
i=1 j=1
Since the eigenvalues are different the double sum has to vanish. When the
eigenvalues are equal the double sum can be normalized to unity implying the
simple result
n X n
(A) (B)
X
(Ai cij Aj ) = ij (3.94)
i=1 j=1
(B)
where the equation of motion for qj is used in the above relation to eliminate
cij .
Thus we have arrived at the conclusion that both cij and dij admit of si-
multaneous diagonalization. At this point we can revert to normal coordinates
by defining a new set of variables Qs
n
(A)
X
qi = Ai Q(A) (3.96)
i=1
All
All All
All
All All
All
This results in the following forms of the kinetic and potential energies
m1 2 m2 2 m1 + m2 2 2
T = (X + Y 2 ) + (x + y 2 ) = l1 1
2 2 2
m2 2 2
+ l 2 + m2 l1 l2 cos(1 2 )1 2
2 2
V = m1 gY m2 gy
= (m1 + m2 )gl1 cos 1 m2 gl2 cos 2
The above equations constitute a set of nonlinear equations. For small os-
cillations we will be interested only in their linearized versions and as such
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 85
retain terms only of small 1 and 2 and their time-derivatives but neglect
their squares and higher powers. We are thus led to the forms
g m 2 l2
1 + 1 = 2
l1 (m1 + m2 )l1
g l1
2 + 2 = 1
l2 l2
which can be viewed as a system of two coupled differential equations.
To determine the normal modes we look into the simple case when l1 =
l2 = l. The above equations then assume a greatly reduced form
ml 1 + m1 g1 = m2 g(2 1 )
m2 l(1 + 2 ) + m2 g2 = 0 (3.98)
d2
1 1
=M
dt2 2 2
m1 +m2
m
g m1 m1
2
M =
l m1m+m
1
2 m1 +m2
m1
1
1 it
=e
2 2
Since the determinant of the coefficient matrix has to vanish to ensure a non-
trivial solution, this means
2 + gl m1m+m gl m
2 2
m1
det 1
=0
gl m1m+m
1
2
2 + gl m1m+m
1
2
= 1 + 2
+ + 2+ + = 0
+ 2 = 0
g 1
where the quantities 2 = l 1 are called the normal frequencies of oscil-
lation.
x1 02 x1 + x2 = 0
x2 02 x2 + x1 = 0
d2
x1 x1
= M
dt2 x2 x2
where M is a 2 2 matrix given by
02
M =
02
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 87
3.9 Summary
In this chapter we reviewed the principles of the Lagrangian approach to
classical mechanics whose analytical structure is described by a set on n ordi-
nary second-order differential equations in terms of a Lagrangian function. Af-
ter discussing the constraints, the principle of virtual work and DAlemberts
principle we derived the Lagrangian equations of motion. We then considered
88 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Exercises
1. The Lagrangian for a mechanical system of two degrees of freedom is
given by
ma2 mga 1 2 5 2
L= (16q1 2 + 20q1 q2 + 25q2 2 ) ( q + q )
72 2 3 1 6 2
where a is a constant. Solve the system subject to the initial conditions
q1 = q2 = 0 and q1 = q2 = q.
2. The kinetic and potential energies of a mechanical system with two de-
grees of freedom are T = 12 (q1 2 + q2 2 ), V = f (q1 q2 ) where f is an arbitrary
function of the given argument. By making a change of variables solve the
problem in terms of an integral involving f .
3. The P
kinetic and potentialPn energies of a mechanical system are in the
n
forms T = 1 fi (qi )qi 2 , V = 1 Vi qi for a system with n degrees of freedom.
Show that the problem can be solved by the method of quadrature.
6. The kinetic and potential energies of a mechanical system with two de-
q1 2
grees of freedom are T = 12 a+bq 2
+ 12 q2 2 q22 , V = c + dq2 where a, b, c, d are con-
stants. Show that the coordinate q2 satisfies the equation (q2 )(q2 + 2)2 =
(t t0 )2 , where , are constants and t = t0 is the initial value of time.
Lagrangian formulation in mechanics 89
10. A bead of mass m slides down under the action of gravity on the inside
of a frictionless cyclodial wire given by the usual equation in the parametric
form x = a( sin ), y = a(1 + cos ), where 0 2. Set up the
Lagrangian and find the equation of motion. Writing z = cos( 2 ), show that
2 g
the equation of motion can be reexpressed in the form ddt2z + 4a z = 0 implying
q
that the bead oscillates with the period 2 4a g .
Chapter 4
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket
Like the Lagrangian, we can define another fundamental quantity, the Hamil-
tonian, associated with the evolution of a mechanical system. While in the
Lagrangian formalism we are required to solve a set of n second-order differ-
ential equations for a system of particles with n degrees of freedom, Hamiltons
equations, in essence, provide a factorized version of them in terms of 2n first-
order partial differential equations in terms of the generalized coordinates qi
and generalized or conjugate momentum pi . The almost symmetrical appear-
ance of these dynamical variables facilitates development of formal theories
based on canonical transformations, action-angle variables and so on to which
we shall come later. We refer to (qi , pi ) as the set of conjugate or canonical
variables. The coordinates (q1 , q2 , ..., qn ) and the momenta (p1 , p2 , ..., pn ) con-
stitute a 2n-dimensional space called the phase space. Hamiltonian equations
define completely the evolution of the system in phase space. The Lagrangian
L(q1 , q2 , ...qn ; q1 , q2 , ...qn ; t), on the other hand, is interpreted in the configura-
tion space with qi and qi denoting, respectively, the coordinates and velocities
at a specific point at time t.
91
92 Advanced Classical Mechanics
we have
" n # n
d X L X L d L L
qi L = qi (4.3)
dt i=1 qi i=1
qi dt qi t
M L2 1 M L2 1
[pi ] = [Fi ] = (4.7)
T [qi ] T 2 [qi ]
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 93
One sees that when the generalized coordinate qi has the dimension of length,
pi has the dimension of momentum and Fi has the dimension of force. When
the generalized coordinate represents a rotation, it is dimensionless implying
2
that pi has the dimension of the angular momentum, i.e., ( MTL ) and Fi has
2
the dimension of torque, i.e., ( MTL2 ).
The construction of the Hamiltonian from a given Lagrangian relies upon
a Legendre transformation mapping the coordinates qi to pi . We introduce a
function H defined in the manner
n
X
H= pi qi L (4.8)
i=1
H = 2T (T V )
= T +V
By comparing (4.10) and (4.11) one gets the set of consistency equations
H
qi =
pi
L H
pi = =
qi qi
H L
= (4.12)
t t
These are Hamiltonian canonical equations of motion and were set up by
William Rowan Hamilton in 1835. Hamiltons canonical equations govern the
trajectories of particle motion in phase space. Hamiltons approach is in some
sense a reformulation of Lagranges second-order differential equations but
in terms of a coupled pair of first order partial differential equations. Our
reference to these equations as canonical equations arises from the fact that
the investigation of motions subjected to the influence of a potential is just
being reduced to the examination of simple differential equations of the form
(4.12).
Interestingly the set of equations (4.12) is invariant under the replacements
qi pi and pi qi . To make a judicious use of such equations it is necessary
to know the given form of the Hamiltonian H. If a direct knowledge of H is not
known, then it may be ascertained from the Legendre transformation (4.8) by
setting up the Lagrangian of the system. Note that in a scleronomic system,
the equations for the 2n variables (qi , pi ) are subject to the pair
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 95
dqi H
qi =
dt pi
dpi H
pi = (4.13)
dt qi
Because of the above equations the time rate of the Hamiltonian simplifies to
n
dH X H H H
= qi + pi +
dt i=1
qi pi t
H
= (4.14)
t
showing that if H does not depend explicitly upon t then it is a constant of
motion.
Example 4.1
If all the coordinates of a system are cyclic prove that the coordinates may
be found out by integration. Prove further that if the system is scleronomous
then the coordinates are linear functions of time.
qi = i (1 , 2 , ...n )t + i , i = 1, 2, ...n
The coordinates are therefore linear in time. This examples provides an ex-
ample of an integrable system.
Remark:
For the kinetic energy function homogeneous in the second degree of the
generalized velocities, the Lagrangian reads
n
1 X
L= aik qi qk V (q) (4.15)
2
j,k=1
where q = (q1 , q2 , ...qn ) and the coefficient matrix A is symmetric: aik = aki .
The canonical momenta are given by the equations pj = L qj =
Pn
i=1 aij (q)qj . In a matrix form they are p = Aq. Inversion leads to
qi = a1
ij pj (4.16)
where a1 1
ij (in general aij 6= (aij )
1
) are the elements of the matrix A1 :
1 T
L=q Aq V (q) (4.17)
2
where T is the transpose and we have suppressed the summation sign.
The Legendre transformation gives for the Hamiltonian
H = pT q L (4.18)
which can be expressed as
1
H = pT q [ q T Aq V ]
2
T 1 1
= p A p [ q T Aq V ]
2
1 T 1
= p A p p A AA1 p + V
T 1
2
1 T 1
= p A p+V
2
= T +V
Example 4.2
p2
H= mgl cos
2ml2
where we have used p = ml2 . The accompanying Hamiltonian equations
which follow are
d H p
= =
dt p ml2
dp H
= = mgl sin
dt
We notice that t does not appear explicitly in H. So H is a constant of motion
and leads to the energy equation
p2
E= mgl cos
2ml2
where the energy E is the constant value of the Hamiltonian.
Example 4.3
Let the parabolic wire be defined in the xy plane along which the particle
is sliding. We ignore any effect of friction and assume that the particle is acted
upon by gravity only.
Taking x to be the generalized coordinate we take the parabola to be given
by an equation y = 12 x2 .
98 Advanced Classical Mechanics
The Lagrangian is
1
L = m(x2 + y 2 ) mgy
2
1 mg 2
= m(1 + x2 )x2 x
2 2
L
p = = m(1 + x2 )x
x
Hence the Hamiltonian is given by
p2 mg 2
H = T +V = + x
2m(1 + x2 ) 2
p2
p
x = , p = x + mg
m(1 + x2 ) m(1 + x2 )
Example 4.4
L
p = = m( 2 + 2 )
L
p = = m( 2 + 2 )
L
p = = m 2 2
Hence the Hamiltonian has the form
H = p + p + p L
" #
1 p2 + p2 p2
= + 2 2
2m 2 + 2
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 99
Example 4.5
Example 4.6
{qi , pj } = ij (4.21)
and
{pi , H} = pi (4.24)
102 Advanced Classical Mechanics
n
X (u1 + u2 ) v (u1 + u2 ) v
(1) {u1 + u2 , v} =
i=1
qi pi pi qi
n
X u1 u2 v u1 u2 v
= + +
i=1
qi qi pi pi pi qi
n n
X u1 v u1 v X
= + [1 2]
i=1
qi pi pi qi i=1
= {u1 , v} + {u2 , v}
n
X (cu) v (cu) v
{cu, v} =
i=1
qi pi pi qi
n
X (u) v (u) v
= c c
i=1
qi pi pi qi
= c{u, v}
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 103
n
X u v u v
(2) {u, v} =
i=1
qi pi pi qi
n
X v u v u
=
i=1
qi pi pi qi
= {v, u}
n
X u (vw) u (vw)
(3) {u, vw} =
i=1
qi pi pi qi
n
X u v w u v w
= w+v w+v
i=1
qi pi pi pi qi qi
n n
X u v u v X u w u w
= w+v
i=1
qi pi pi qi i=1
qi pi pi qi
= {u, v}w + v{u, w}
Now
n
X v u w w v u
X = u, v, u, v,
i=1
qi q i p i qi pi pi
n
X v u w w v u
= u, + ,v u, + ,v
i=1
qi qi pi qi pi pi
n
X w w w
= {u, v} . {u, v}
i=1
qi pi qi pi
= {{u, v}, w}
On interchanging the indices i and j the first and second terms vanish due to
antisymmetry while the third term becomes equal to the fourth term except
for a sign. We therefore conclude that Y = 0.
Hence
{u, {v, w}} + {v, {w, u}} = X = {{u, v}, w}
which stands for the Jacobi identity.
Proof:
~
{x, V ~l} ~ ~r)x
= Vy z Vz y = (V
~
{y, V ~l} ~ ~r)y
= Vz x Vx z = (V
~ ~l}
{z, V ~ ~r)z
= Vx y Vy x = (V (4.30)
Example 4.7
Let g be a function of the canonical variables (q, p). A Taylor series expan-
sion gives the representation
2 2
dg d g t
g = g0 + t+ + ...
dt 0 dt2 0 2!
where g0 is the initial value of g.
Now since
dg
= {g, H}
dt
2
d g dg
= , H = {{g, H}, H}
dt2 dt
t2
g = g0 + {g0 , H}t + {{g0 , H}, H} + ...
2!
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 107
For the given problem since the particle is acted upon by a constant force
F , we can identify the Hamiltonian as
p2
H= Fx
2m
implying for g = x the following results:
p2
1 p p
{x, H} = x, Fx = {x, p2 } = {x, p} =
2m 2m m m
p p2
F F
{{x, H}, H} = , F x = {p, x} = = constant
m 2m m m
So the series for g = x terminates beyond {{x, H}, H} whence it follows that
p0 1F 2
x = x0 + t+ t
m 2m
Similarly choosing g = p we find p = p0 + F t.
Example 4.8
Find the position x and momentum p at time t for the motion of a particle
p2
given by the Hamiltonian H = 2m + 12 m 2 x2 .
Using for qi and pi the Hamiltons equations of motion the terms in the squared
brackets in the right-hand side cancel out and we are left with the invariance
result dA = dA0 . These terms actually speak of the vanishing of the divergence
of the velocity vector V ~ having components (q1 , q2 , , qn ; p1 , p2 , ..., pn ), that is,
.V~ = 0.
To find the implication of the above result let be the density of the phase
fluid over the phase space. The following quantity
can be looked upon as the probability that the system is residing in the in-
finitesimal volume dq1 dq2 ...dq3N dp1 dp2 , ...dp3N .
The continuity equation for
N
X (qi ) (pi )
+ ( + )=0 (4.37)
t i=1 qi pi
Adjusting the second term in the left-hand side in terms of Poisson brackets
by using Hamiltons equations of motion which also enable us to do away with
the third term we arrive at Liouvilles equation
d
= + {, H} = 0 (4.39)
dt t
It shows that is stationary, i.e., the density of the phase fluid is unchanged.
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 109
L(qi , qi )
pk = , i, k = 1, 2, ...n (4.40)
qk
qi and qi being the usual generalized coordinates and velocities.
A Jacobian matrix can be introduced according to
pk 2L
[ki ] = = (4.41)
qi qi qk
keeping in mind that the mapping from the Lagrangian to the Hamiltonian
form requires replacement of the velocities qs by the canonical momenta ps.
For the independence of the n momenta it is of course necessary that det() 6=
0. Indeed if we do not have an invertible matrix, then there is no unique
solution of the equations of motion. In point of fact, dependence of a few
momenta on others will cause the determinant to vanish.
From the EulerLagrange equation
d L(qi , qi ) L(qi , qi )
=0 (4.42)
dt qk qk
2L 2L L
qi + qi =0 (4.43)
qi qk qi qk qk
L 2L
ik vi = vi hi (qi , vi ) (4.45)
qk qi qk
where hi is a function of coordinates and velocities. Such an equation can be
looked upon as the transformed version of the EulerLagrangian equation.
Now if the determinant of the Jacobian matrix vanishes there would be
existence relationships among the momenta. These could exist as functions
and is free from the velocities which are present in the singular part of (4.29).
If we go for a virtual variation, H for the right-hand side of Legendres
form above would be
X X X L X L X
H = qi pi + qi pi qi qi = (qi pi pi qi ) (4.49)
i i i
qi i
qi i
with the qi terms canceling out. But being a function of the qs and ps the
variation of H in itself gives
X H H
H = ( qi + pi ) (4.50)
i
qi pi
n
H X l H
pi = vl = = {pi , H}, i = 1, 2, ..., n (4.54)
qi i=1
qi qi
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 111
which one has to remember that H, the total Hamiltonian, is given by the
extended form (4.47). Note that to build up a viable theory, the primary
constraints j are to be supplemented by the secondary restriction j = 0
because like the primary constraints the time derivative of these constraints
must vanish at all times.
q = F (t, q, q) (4.55)
L 2L 2L 2L
q F (t, q, q) 2 = 0, (4.58)
q t q q q q
where q has been replaced by F for consistency. It then follows easily that if
we take a partial derivative with respect to q and slightly readjust the terms
then we arrive at the form
d F M
M+ M= + (M q) + (M F ) = 0, (4.59)
dt q t q q
112 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Q1 := q, Q1 = q; and Q2 := q (4.64)
Q1 + Q2 + Q1 = 0, Q1 = Q2 (4.67)
H = Pi Qi L (4.69)
and canonical momenta given by
P1 = Q1 Q2 , P2 = Q1 (4.70)
a Hamiltonian for the PUO system can be extracted using L given by (4.66)
1 1 1
H = P1 P2 + P22 + Q22 Q21 (4.71)
2 2 2
From the standard definition of the Poisson bracket
Q1 = P2 , Q2 = P1 + P2 ; P1 = Q1 , P2 = Q2 (4.73)
4.11 Summary
In this chapter we gave a brief description of the Hamiltonian formalism
in classical mechanics that forms the basis for working in a phase space. We
derived Hamiltonian canonical equations of motion in terms of the generalized
coordinates and generalized or canonical momenta. Unlike Lagranges equa-
tions of motion which hold in the configuration space, Hamiltons equations
are a set of two coupled partial differential equations representing the mo-
tion of the system in the phase space. We introduced Poisson brackets and
reviewed their main properties including recasting Hamiltonian equations in
terms of the Poisson bracket. We also discussed Liouvilles theorem. Further
we touched upon the subject of singular Lagrangians and gave an exposition
to higher derivative classical systems.
114 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Exercises
(1) If the Hamiltonian of a dynamical system is given by H = p1 q1 p2 q2
aq12 + bq22 where a, b are constants, show that p2 bq
q1
2
=constant.
(4) For a linear transformation from the canonical variables (q, p) to the
pair (Q, P ) given by Q = a11 q + a12 p, P = a21 q + a22 p, find the conditions on
the numbers aij , i, j = 1, 2 so that {q.p} = 1 and pq = P Q + dFdt where F is a
function of q and p.
(9) If X~ is defined as X
~ = c1~r + c2 p~ + c3 (~r p~) where c1 , c2 , c3 are arbi-
trary constants, then show for an arbitrary vector V ~ that the Poisson bracket
~ V
{X, ~ .~l} = V ~ where ~l is the angular momentum vector.
~ X,
Hamiltonian and Poisson bracket 115
117
118 Advanced Classical Mechanics
difference in the initial conditions can cause the trajectories to follow different
lines of evolution.
dX~
= f~(X,
~ t, u) (5.1)
dt
~
where X(t) stands for an m-dimensional vector and f~ is a vector field which
can also depend on X~ and t apart from a set of auxiliary variables collectively
~ and f~ are represented by
denoted as u. More specifically X
x1 (t) f1
x2 (t) f2
~ , f~ ...
X(t) ... (5.2)
... ...
xm (t) fm
Prey-predator systems, bacterial growth and radioactive decay of atoms are
some simple examples of a dynamical system.
In principle f can depend upon several other parameters like the coupling
constant, amplitude, etc. but these have been omitted from giving an explicit
display. We assume that we have a deterministic system at hand and the
set of initial conditions (x1 (0), x2 (0), ...xm (0)) serves as judicious inputs to
determine uniquely the solution we are after. Normally these initial conditions
are always subject to uncontrollable fluctuations in the measurements because
no matter how good our intention is we can never make an infinitely precise
measurement. Thus, measurements are always subject to uncertainties so that
errors are bound to creep in. The question then becomes relevant as to how
sensitive are the solutions to small errors accompanying the initial conditions.
We take the evolution rule to be guided by a map from the underlying phase
space to itself. We parameterize such a map by the time parameter t and refer
to it by the function t (x).
Any differential equation is characterized by its order. Thus, (5.1) repre-
sents a system with order m. The simplest one corresponds to m = 1 which
is a straightforwardly integrable case:
Zt
x = x(0) + f (s, x(s), u)ds (5.3)
0
Dynamical systems: An overview 119
for some initial condition x(0). The general solution for all t corresponding to
the set of initial conditions (x1 (0), x2 (0), ...xm (0)) is called a complete flow or
simply a flow and the set of points along a flow is called the trajectory or an
orbit. A flow at time t is the mapping t (x). We note that 0 (x0 ) = x0 and
that the composition rule for the flow, namely, t s = t+s holds. Here the
composition means t s = t (s (x)).
If t is not explicitly present in (5.1) the system is classified as an au-
tonomous system. Autonomous systems are thus stationary and in the absence
of the set of auxiliary variables u, X ~ is given by
dX~
= f~(x1 , x2 , ...xm ) (5.4)
dt
We say that the vector field f~ is subject to the Lipschitz condition on a set S
if for any pair of coordinates (X~ (i) , X
~ (j) ) S Rm there exists a constant
K such that
|f~(X
~ (i) ) f~(X
~ (j) )| < K|X
~ (i) X
~ (j) | (5.5)
for all K > 0. If the vector field f~ is subject to the Lipschitz condition in S,
then there exists a unique solution for the differential equation for a given set
of initial conditions.
The set of Hamiltons equations of motion defined in terms of the Hamil-
tonian H = H(x1 , x2 , ..., xm ; p1 , p2 , ..., pm ) but not consisting of t explicitly,
namely,
dxi H
xi =
dt pi
dpi H
pi = (5.6)
dt xi
(i = 1, 2, ..., m) is an example of a conservative autonomous dynamical system
with f~ standing for the column matrix
H
p1
H
p2
...
...
...
H
f~ pm (5.7)
H
x1
H
x2
...
...
...
H
xm
120 Advanced Classical Mechanics
dX~
0 +Im
= Af~, A = (5.8)
dt Im 0
where X ~ is a column matrix like the one given in (5.2) whose first m entries are
the coordinates (x1 , x2 , ...xm ) and the remaining m entries are the momenta
(p1 , p2 , ...pm ). A is written in a block form with the object Im representing for
the (m m) identity matrix.
State variables are those that offer a complete description of the state
of a dynamical system while the state space corresponds to the set of all the
possible values of the state variables. The dimension of the dynamical system is
given by the number of state variables. Phase space normally refers to the state
space which is continuous and finite-dimensional. The phase plane consists of
trajectories obtained from the solutions of (5.1). For instance, taking m = 1,
a phase plane is guided by the pair (x, dx dt ) while for m = 2, the phase plane
corresponds to (x1 , x2 ) or simply (x, y) where x and y are a pair of Cartesian
coordinates. An ensemble of trajectories for a given system in the phase plane
or a phase space is called a phase portrait (see Figure 5.1). An isocline refers
to a curve in a phase plane or a phase space on which the trajectories have a
fixed gradient. In general, the set of initial conditions (x1 (0), x2 (0), ...xm (0))
dictates how a dynamical system evolves ultimately toward the final state
(which may be a point or an area or a curve depending on the manifold
the dynamical system operates in) in the phase space or state space. Such a
destination is called an attractor.
An equilibrium point or a stationary point is a solution resulting from the
vanishing of the right-hand side of (5.1). Thus, if ~x is an equilibrium or a fixed
point we have
, u) = 0
f~(t, ~x (5.9)
An equilibrium point or a stationary point is also referred to as a fixed
point or a critical point. The equilibrium may or may not be stable. If say,
the origin (0, 0) represents a state of stable equilibrium toward which the set
of all the trajectories is driven at, then the state of stable equilibrium of the
origin is termed the point attractor or a sink. If the opposite is the case, we
have a repeller or a source at the origin.
We now turn to the following examples.
Example 5.1
Example 5.2
(y y0 )2 (x x0 )2
= 1 (5.17)
b2 a2
Dynamical systems: An overview 123
where a2 = 2(EE 0) 2
V 00 (x0 ) and b = 2m(E E0 ) are, respectively, the squares of the
semi-major and semi-minor axis of the ellipse. We call the point (x0 , p0 ) in
the phase plane an elliptic singularity for E > E0 which is in a state of stable
equilibrium.
On the other hand, when V 00 (x0 ) < 0, which corresponds to the possibility
of a repulsive force, the representative point traces out hyperbolic trajectories
as given by
(y y0 )2 (x x0 )2
2
= 1 + (5.18)
b a2
with respect to the center (x0 , y0 ). Note that ab are the slopes of the asymp-
totes that pass through the center and a is the fixed distance of the vertices
from the center. The point (x0 , p0 ) in the phase plane is called a hyperbolic
singularity or a saddle. The motion in the neighborhood of (x0 , y0 ) is in a
state of unstable equilibrium.
Take the case of the harmonic oscillator when the particle executes a simple
harmonic motion being attracted to a given fixed point by a constant force
F = kx, k > 0, which is proportional to the distance from the point.
The harmonic oscillator is a conservative system and as was already noted in
Chapter 1, it admits
q of a general trigonometric solution x(t) = A cos(0 t +
k
), where 0 = m, implying that p(t) = Am0 sin(0 t + ). With the
1 2 2
potential for such a conservative system being V (x) = 2 m0 x , the energy
2
p2
1 2 2 mA 02
E turns out to be E = 2m +2 m0 x = 2 . Squaring and adding the
expression for x and p we readily find that the representative point traces out
paths of ellipse
q inthe phase plane with semi-major and semi-minor axis of
lengths ( 0 2E
1
m , 2Em). We identify the point (0, 0) as the point of stable
equilibrium.
When the force is repulsive, i.e., F = kx, k < 0, a different picture
emerges. Here the trigonometric solutions are to be replaced by their hyper-
bolic ones and we run into the possibility of two different combinations of
solutions, namely, x(t) = A cosh(0 t) and p(t) = Am0 sinh(0 t) or the
pair x(t) = A sinh(0 t) and p(t) = Am0 cosh(0 t). In the first case, the
p2 mA2 2
energy is E = 2m 12 m02 x2 = 2 0 which is negative while in the second
mA2 2
case, the energy is E = + 2 0 which is positive. For the negative energy
solution we have at t = 0, x = A and p = 0 which means that the parti-
cle during the course of its motion from x = passes through the points
x = A and subsequently moves away in the future. For the positive energy
solution, however, the particle takes up the position x = 0 at t = 0 with a
finite value of p = Am0 on the center of repulsion in the phase plane. It is
clear that the asymptotes, which intersect at the point of unstable equilibrium
(0, 0), branch out the regions of positive and negative energy solutions.
124 Advanced Classical Mechanics
What happens in the case of the simple pendulum problem? The equation
of motion we wrote down in (1.68), namely,
g
+ sin = 0 (5.19)
l
has the accompanying Hamiltonian
1 2 g
H= cos (5.20)
2 l
From the above form of H we can identify different types of regions for the
motion. In the interval ( gl , gl ), the motion is finite and oscillatory in character
and corresponds to curves for the oscillatory pendulum motion swinging back
and forth about its vertical position. However, while H < gl does not allow
for any physical motion, being negative in this case, the other extreme
corresponding to H > gl points to an unbounded motion. H = gl corresponds
to the separatrix which separates the phase space, formed by the pair of
variables (, ), into two distinct regions. It passes through the point (, 0) in
the phase space.
To determine the equation of the separatrix we note that on it the Hamil-
tonian assumes the form
g 1 g
= 2 cos (5.21)
l 2 l
which gives for
r
g
= 2 cos (5.22)
l 2
The above equation can be easily integrated to yield
s
l 1
t= ln tan ( + ) (5.23)
g 4
and represents the equation of the
gseparatrix.
Writing (5.23) in the form e l t = tan( 4 + 4 ) with a similar one for its
inverse, and then adding the two it is straightforward to obtain the relationship
r
g
cos = sech t (5.24)
2 l
Thus from (5.22) we arrive at the form of the velocity profile
r r
g g
= 2 sech t (5.25)
l l
It represents a bell-shaped curve resembling a soliton-like solitary wave. The
latter decays asymptotically with time while its width of the curve goes in-
versely as the factor gl .
p
Dynamical systems: An overview 125
x1 = 1 et , x2 = 2 et , ...xn = n et (5.27)
From the theory of linear algebraic equations, we know that (5.15) will ad-
mit of nontrivial solutions in k s provided the determinant of the coefficient
matrix vanishes:
a11 a12 ... a1n
a21 a22 ... a2n
det =0 (5.29)
... ... ... ...
an1 an2 ... ann
The above equation is referred to as the characteristic equation for . Its roots
are the eigenvalues of the matrix A.
Let us discuss the simplest case corresponding to n = 2 for the matrix A.
In the Cartesian (x, y) plane we address the two equations
x = a11 x + a12 y
y = a21 x + a22 y (5.30)
for < t < +, having the underlying determinant a11 a22 a12 a21 .
The characteristic equation for such a reduced case turns out to be a
quadratic in , namely,
If 1 and 2 are the two roots of this equation, then these are given by
1 p
1 , 2 = [T rA (T rA)2 4] (5.32)
2
In other words,
with
D = (T rA)2 4 (5.35)
for asymptotic t. The solution is referred to as the unstable node (see Figure
5.3). If T rA =0, then 1 =- 2 implying = 1 2 < 0 contrary to the chosen
sign of and hence is not a possible mode.
(b) = 1 2 >0, D<0
Here complex eigenvalues are signalled. Let these be
1 = + i, 2 = i (5.36)
where the imaginary part 6= 0. If T rA <0, then it implies < 0 and we have
an asymptotically stable case. The solution is referred to as the stable focus
or a stable spiral point (see Figure 5.4). The contrary behavior is noticed
for T rA >0 when > 0. Such a case corresponds to an unstable focus or
an unstable spiral point (see Figure 5.5). If T rA =0, for which = 0, the
solutions are guided only by a phase term eit suggesting only closed orbits
around the fixed point. The solution is stable in character and referred to as
the neutrally stable center rather than the asymptotically stable fixed point
(see Figure 5.6).
(c) = 1 2 >0, D=0
This is the case of equal roots 1 = 2 . We carry out the analysis as
follows: If there are two linearly independent eigenvectors, then (T rA) < 0
corresponds to 1 = 2 < 0 and we have asymptotic stability which is that
of a nodal point and referred to as the stable star node. In this connection it
needs to be noted that if any of the coefficients of our basic equation (5.17)
are fluctuated a little, then this may cause a slight displacement of the equal
roots to a pair of conjugate complex roots or a pair of real roots. Thus, the
position of a stable star node is intermediate between a nodal point or a focal
128 Advanced Classical Mechanics
point. If however (T rA) > 0, then the opposite behavior holds and we have an
unstable star node. The case (T rA) = 0 points to 1 =- 2 which cannot hold
unless both the eigenvalues vanish pointing to =0 which is contrary to the
assumption > 0. If there is only one independent eigenvector, then the role
of stable star node and unstable star node are replaced by stable degenerate
node and unstable degenerate node, respectively.
Next we turn to = 1 2 < 0. Here the eigenvalues are of opposite signs
showing that while one of the exponentials in (5.14) decays, the other grows.
We thus have a combination of trajectories one of which asymptotically (with
time) converges to the fixed point as represented by the negative eigenvalue
and the other diverges (hyperbolic in nature) as represented by the positive
eigenvalue. With the presence of one diverging term due to the effect of the
positive eigenvalue, the overall stability cannot be assured and so the fixed
point is an unstable saddle point (see Figure 5.7).
Finally we discuss the case when = 1 2 = 0. It follows that at least
one eigenvalue is zero and we get a line of fixed points. To clarify such an
issue we consider first the case of T rA <0 with 1 = 0 and 2 < 0. It gives
a line of neutrally stable (non-isolated) fixed points. On the other hand, for
the case T rA >0 the opposite feature holds and we have a line of unstable
130 Advanced Classical Mechanics
~x = c1 ~1 e1 t + c2 ~2 e2 t (5.37)
where c1 and c2 are constants and ~1 and ~2 are two independent eigenvectors.
When there are repeated real eigenvalues with two linearly independent
eigenvectors the general solution can be expressed as
where c1 and c2 are constants, p~ and ~q are two independent eigenvectors and
c1 0 and c2 0 are another set of constants related to c1 and c2 .
Example 5.3
x + 02 x + 0 x = 0 (5.41)
where is proportional to the damping constant incorporating the effects of
the friction.
We can interpret the above second-order equation as a combination of two
first order equations
x = y, y = 02 x 0 y (5.42)
By equating to zero the above expressions for x and y, the fixed point is clearly
seen to be at the origin (0, 0).
The accompanying characteristic equation is evaluated from the determi-
nant
1
det = 2 + 0 + 02 0 (5.43)
0 2 0
It gives for the eigenvalues
0 0 p 2
1 , 2 = 4 (5.44)
2 2
First of all, if = 0, then the system reduces to the simple harmonic
oscillator depicting a periodic motion. The eigenvalues are given by i0 . We
therefore have a center at the origin. Next with > 2 (overdamping), the fixed
point (0, 0) is a stable node. It includes also the case of critical damping for
= 2. However, in the range 0 < < 2 (underdamping), the fixed point (0, 0)
is a stable focus. Finally, corresponding to < 0, we have an unstable focus
and unstable node for the fixed point (0, 0) corresponding to the respective
cases of 2 < 4 and 2 4.
132 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 5.4
x = x y, y = 7x + 5y 3 (5.45)
The fixed point is obtained by setting the derivatives x and y equal to zero.
We therefore get a unique solution ( 14 , 14 ). For a linear system the matrix A is a
constant. The eigenvalues are obtained by solving the characteristic equation
2
which for this system is easily found to be 6 + 12 = 0. The roots are
in conjugate complex pairs namely 3 i 3. It has a positive real part and
hence can be identified as an unstable focus or a spiral source. To find the
eigenvectors we solve for the matrix equation
1 1 0
= (5.46)
7 5 0
for 1,2 = 3 i 3. For the positive sign we obtain the following link between
and :
= (2 + i 3) (5.47)
implying that the accompanying two eigenvectors are
1
(1) = (5.48)
2 i 3
where we have used Eulers formula ei = cos + i sin . Splitting the real and
imaginary components this is of the form 1 + 2 where
3t cos 3t 3t sin 3t
1 = e , 2 = e
(2 cos 3t 3 sin 3t 2 sin 3t + 3 cos 3t
(5.52)
Dynamical systems: An overview 133
For the second eigenvector (2) , we would be similarly led to the form 1 2 .
Of course for a linear system the sum and difference of two solutions are also
solutions and so we conclude that both 1 and 2 are solutions too. These
are real solutions and linearly independent and hence the general solution is
obtained as
3t cos 3t 3t sin 3t
x(t) = c1 e + c2 e
(2 cos 3t 3 sin 3t 2 sin 3t + 3 cos 3t
(5.53)
where c1 and c2 are constants which can be determined from some given initial
conditions.
dX~
= Af~ (5.56)
dt
~ and f~ are given by the column matrices
where X
~ x(t) ~ f1 (x, y)
X(t) , f (5.57)
y(t) f2 (x, y)
Suppose (x0 , y0 ) is a fixed point about which we carry out a Taylor expan-
sion for f1 (x, y) and f2 (x, y) as follows:
f1 f1
f1 (x, y) = f1 (x0 , y0 ) + (x x0 )( ) + (y y0 )( ) + R1 (x, y) (5.58)
x 0 y 0
f2 f2
f2 (x, y) = f2 (x0 , y0 ) + (x x0 )( ) + (y y0 )( ) + R2 (x, y) (5.59)
x 0 y 0
134 Advanced Classical Mechanics
where R1 (x, y) and R2 (x, y) are the remainder terms controlled by the condi-
tions
R1 (x, y) R2 (x, y)
lim [ ] = 0, lim [ ]=0 (5.60)
r0 r r0 r
p
where r = (x x0 )2 + (y y0 )2 .
Since (x0 , y0 ) is a fixed point, it should satisfy the stationary condition
and hence f1 (x0 , y0 ) and f2 (x0 , y0 ) (being just constants) have to vanish.
Transforming to new variables X and Y by performing a shift about the fixed
point namely
X = x x0 , Y = y y0 (5.61)
it readily follows that X and Y are given by
f1 f1
X = X( ) +Y( ) + R1 (X + x0 , Y + y0 ) (5.62)
x 0 y 0
f2 f2
Y = X( ) +Y( ) + R2 (X + x0 , Y + y0 ) (5.63)
x 0 y 0
On identifying
f1 f1 f2 f2
a=( ) ,b = ( ) ,c = ( ) ,d = ( ) (5.64)
x 0 y 0 x 0 y 0
M = (5.66)
( f
x )0
2
( f
y )
2
0
is called the Jacobian matrix. The main task is to evaluate the Jacobian ma-
trix at the fixed point and go for the linearization. Let us take some simple
situations in the following examples.
Example 5.5
x = 3x x2 xy, y = 2y xy 2y 2 (5.67)
3 0
M = (5.68)
0 2
It has positive eigenvalues 3 and 2. Hence the fixed point is an unstable node.
What about the other fixed point (4, 1)? Since at this point the values of
the partial derivatives are ( f f1 f2 f2
x )0 = 4, ( y )0 = 4, ( x )0 = 1 and ( y )0 =
1
Example 5.6
4, ( f
y )
1
= 2, ( f f2
x )(2,6) = 6 and ( y )
2
= 0. The corresponding
(2,6) 2,6)
matrix M is given by
4 2
M = (5.73)
6 0
Example 5.7
Example 5.8
In this way the regulation of the pace of the heart goes on in a cycle with the
heart contracting from a diastole to a systole and then rapidly back again to
the original diastolic state which is a state of stable equilibrium (fixed point).
To make a qualitative study of heart functioning Zeeman considered the
following scheme in terms of the equations
x = x x3 y, y = x x0
where x stands for the length of a cardiac muscle fiber but has a small positive
coefficient prefixed due to the fast eigenvalue of the system, y is a signature
of electrochemical activity and x0 is a constant corresponding to a typical
length in the muscle fiber in the diastolic state with x0 > 13 .
By putting x = 0 and y = 0 we determine the equilibrium point at (x0 , y0 )
where y0 = x0 x30 . To examine its stability behavior, we need to carry out
linearization and study the Jacobian matrix of this system.
Using the notations already employed earlier, we find here f1 = x x3
y and f2 = x x0 . The partial derivatives turn out to be ( f x )(x0 ,y0 ) =
1
1 3x20 , ( f
y )
1
= 1, ( f f2
x )(x0 ,y0 ) = 1 and ( y )
2
= 0. Hence the
(x0 ,y0 ) (x0 ,y0 )
corresponding Jacobi matrix M is given by
1 3x20
1
M = (5.78)
1 0
2 (1 3x20 ) + 1 = 0
from which the two eigenvalues can be solved in the forms
1
q
1,2 = [(1 3x20 ) (1 + 3x20 )(x20 1)]
2
Interestingly both the eigenvalues are negative for the possibilities x0 > 13
or x0 < 13 . In each case the equilibrium point (x0 , y0 ) is stable. This will
be clear from the remarks made below.
A graphical illustration of the model in the yx-plane is shown in Figure 5.8.
The heartbeat cycle has two equilibrium states, namely, the diastole and sys-
tole. The main point to note is that as the chemical control variable y increases,
there is a gradual contraction in the muscle fiber until a threshold position is
reached when there is a rapid contraction and a systolic equilibrium state is
reached. After this there is a rapid relaxation of the muscle fibers until the
heart is returned to the original diastolic state and the cycle is completed.
138 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Available
Available
Loyal
the spirit of the LotkaVolterra model was contained in the 1920 paper by
Alfred Lotka, an American biologist and actuary, who proposed a predator-
prey model to understand the population variation of the interacting fish.
Such a study was of utmost relevance then since one already had some knowl-
edge on the percentage of the total catch of selachians (such as sharks, rays,
dogfish and skates) which were the predators of the fish (such as garfish, eel
and sardines) giving some qualitative idea on the predator-prey interactions.
The data collected by the Italian biologist Umberto dAncona accounted for
the period between 1914 and 1923 and showed a rather substantial increase
of the predators during the time of the First World War. Although people
initially thought that this could be due to less fishing due to the turmoil of
the war, it was also realized that the food fish also revealed marked changes
simultaneously. Umberto dAnconas father-in-law was Vito Volterra who also
worked on the same model as Lotkas around the same time. In 1925 he came
up with some explanations of the data collected by Umberto by giving an
interpretation of the cause-effect interactions between the selachians (preda-
tors) and the food fish (preys) and sought to explore, in general, the cyclic
relationship between the predator-prey species. Since then it has been cus-
tomary to refer to the two species predator-prey model as the LotkaVolterra
model.
In the LotkaVolterra model, a pair of coupled evolution equations is pro-
posed involving two unknown variablesone for the prey (x) and another for
the predator (y). The degree of interaction is assumed to be proportional to
the product xy. In this way the following two equations are set up:
We thus obtain
ds dr
= s(1 r), = r(s 1) (5.81)
d d
showing to be the only control parameter of the system.
Further, by defining the variables
a gy gx
M = (5.88)
gy b + gx
a 0
M = (5.89)
0 b
Dynamical systems: An overview 141
0 b
M = (5.90)
a 0
It is an off-diagonal matrix with imaginary eigenvalues given by i ab. Hence
the fixed point is a stable center.
dU U dx U dy
= + =0 (5.93)
dt x dt y dt
dy
by substituting the above relations for dx
dt and dt . At an equilibrium fixed
~ ( U , U ), it
point both the partial derivatives of U vanish. Denoting y x
dy
also turns out that div = 0. Further it also holds that dx is given by
U
dy x
= U (5.94)
dx y
U
When the denominator y vanishes the solution curves terminate at a point.
Example 5.9
Consider
1
U (x2 + y 2 ) (5.95)
2
U U dx
then evaluating the partial derivatives x and y , we find dt = y and
dy dy
dt = x. Thus the fixed point is (0, 0). Now since dx = xy , when integrated
2 2 2
it gives the solution curve as circles x + y = c where c is a constant, for
(x, y) 6= (0, 0).
We now inquire into the possibility of replacing the partial derivatives U
x
dy
and Uy by some arbitrary functions say, u(x, y) and v(x, y). Then dx
dt and dt
would read
dx dy
= u(x, y), = v(x, y) (5.96)
dt dt
Hence any function of x and y, say, W (x, y), which depends upon the variable
t implicitly due to x and y being functions of t, will have its time derivative
go as
dW W dx W dy W W
= + = u(x, y) + v(x, y) (5.97)
dt x dt y dt x y
where the partial derivatives of W are assumed to exist and are continuous.
The above equation can be expressed in the form
dW (~x)
= W (~x) ~ (5.98)
dt
where ~x = (x, y) and ~ = (u, v). Note that W (~x) is called a Lyapunov function,
and it will be our endeavor to seek for such a function for the understanding
of the stability of a system. It must however be pointed out that for many
nonlinear systems constructing an appropriate Lyapunov function proves very
Dynamical systems: An overview 143
W (tn (x)) > W (tn+1 (x)) > ... > W (l) (5.99)
which runs counter to the previous inequality. So all the limit points of the
flow are at the origin and x = 0 is asymtotically stable.
With l the limit point, for large n, x(tn ) can be made arbitrarily close to l.
We now turn to some examples to determine the Lyapunov function and
then examine the stability according to the criterion prescribed above.
144 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 5.10
Example 5.11
Example 5.12
All
All
All
All
where we have set 0 = 1 for simplicity. It is now easy to solve for r and
from (5.108) and (5.109) by first multiplying the two equations by cos(t + )
and sin(t + ) and subtracting and then multiplying the two equations by
sin(t + ) and cos(t + ) and adding to obtain, respectively,
a
r = a sin(t + )f, = cos(t + )f (5.110)
r
Equations (5.110) are an exact mapped version of (5.106) in terms of the
variables r and . So it has indeed been possible to factorize (5.20). In the
von der Pol case a specific form of f is used which is
f (r, t) = (1 r2 cos2 t)r sin t (5.111)
We now explore the situation when the quantities r and are slowly
varying functions of time as is indeed the case when the system approaches
the limit cycle. The averaged amplitude and phase are then given by
Z 2
a 2
Z
dr a d
= f (r, ) sin d, = f (r, ) cos d (5.112)
dt 2 0 dt r 0
where the integration is taken over the period of oscillation.
Using the form (5.111) for f the integrations are straightforward to perform
using the well-known results
Z 2 Z 2 Z 2
1 2 1
2
cos d = , 2
sin cos d = , and sin2 sin cos d = 0
0 2 0 8 0
(5.113)
We obtain
dr r r2 d
= a (1 ), =0 (5.114)
dt 2 4 dt
1
The r integration is easily performed by setting r = u 2 yielding the form
at
2e 2
r(t) = p (5.115)
4 + r02 eat r02
where r0 is given an initial condition.
It is worthwhile to inquire into the nature of the fixed points of the first
equation in (5.114). By inspection the fixed points are at r = 0 and r = 2.
Performing a slight perturbation around r = 0, i.e., setting r = 0 + , where
is a small quantity gives
a
= + O( 3 ) (5.116)
2
at
Therefore goes as e 2 which blows up asymptotically. If we do the same
around r = 2, i.e., set r = 2 + the situation turns out to be entirely different.
We find
a
= + O( 2 ) (5.117)
2
at
Therefore goes as e 2 signalling r = 2 to be a stable equilibrium point.
148 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 5.13
Show that the following nonlinear system given by the pair of equations
x y
x = y + p [1 (x2 + y 2 )], y = x + p [1 (x2 + y 2 )]
x2 + y2 x2 + y2
has a limit cycle.
r = 1 r2 , = 1
On integrating we find
ce2t 1
r(t) = , (t) = 0 t
ce2t + 1
1+r0
where c = 1r 0
and (r0 , 0 ) are a set of initial conditions. We readily notice
that as t increases r approaches a circle of radius 1 with constant -value. In
particular, when r > 1 it is seen that r < 0 while for r < 1 it is found that
r > 0. In the former case the trajectories spiral clockwise inward while in the
latter case the trajectories spiral clockwise outward. Thus, r(t) is a clear case
of a limit cycle.
Limit cycles are an intrinsic property of nonlinear systems. However, limit
cycles can also arise by piecing together linear equations. We follow the treat-
ment presented in [2]. We consider the damped oscillator problem on two
sides of the zero-boundary of the velocity variable given by the following pair
of linear equations:
x + 2g x + 02 x = 0 x < 0 (5.118)
x + 2g x + 02 (x ) = 0 x > 0 (5.119)
where is a real constant. We also restrict g to the interval 0 < g < 0 .
While the general solution of (5.118) is given by
x = y, y = 0 2 (x ) 2gy (5.122)
it is easily seen that the point (, 0) is a stable focus.
Let us now follow the motion in the phase plane defined by the coordinates
(x, y). Consider the lower half plane. Here a typical point will be guided by
the equation (5.118). If the motion starts from say, the point (x1 , 0) on the
x-axis at time say, t1 , then it obeys according to
x1 (t1 + ) = Aeg(t1 + ) cos(t1 + +) = Aeg(t1 + ) cos(t1 +) (5.124)
Comparison of (5.123) and (5.124) shows that the factor Aegt1 cos(t1 + )
can be canceled out leaving us with the relation
x1 (t1 + ) = x1 (5.125)
g
where the coefficient factor ( e ) is smaller than unity because g
=
g
and 0 < g < 0 .
(0 g)(0 +g)
Next, as the representative point x1 enters the upper half plane, it comes
under the influence of Equation (5.119). The relevant equations as the point
travels from (t1 + ) until it meets the x-axis again at (t1 + 2
) are
x1 (t1 + ) = Beg(t1 + ) cos(t1 + + ) = Beg(t1 + ) cos(t1 + )
(5.126)
2
x1 (t1 + ) = Beg(t1 + ) cos(t1 + + ) = Beg(t1 + ) cos(t1 + )
(5.127)
Utilizing (5.125) a combination of the above two equations gives
2
x1 (t1 + ) = (1 + ) + 2 x1 (5.128)
150 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Relation (5.128) can now be iterated to write down the coordinates of the
chain of the intersections of the particle trajectory with the positive x-axis in
terms of the starting coordinate x1 only as the particle alternately moves in
the lower and upper half phase plane:
Example 5.14
Show that a physical system given by the equation x(13x2 2x2 )+x = 0
has a limit cycle.
It transpires by putting equal to zero the right-hand sides that the origin
(0, 0) is the only fixed point. Transforming to polar coordinates by setting
x = r cos and y = r sin gives the following forms of the equations in the
(r, ) plane
This implies that r > 0 for 1 > 2r2 + r2 cos2 > 0 or for
1 1
r2 < <
2 + cos2 3
Dynamical systems: An overview 151
5.8 Bifurcations
The change in the nature of the fixed point leading to a drastic change
in the behavior of the trajectories in the neighborhood of the fixed point
gives rise to bifurcation. Let us have a look at the damped oscillator problem
considered earlier in this chapter. We found a change in the nature of the fixed
point from a stable focus to a stable node as moved out from the interval
0 < < 2 to the region > 2 . Since stability persists we cannot call = 2 to
be a bifurcation point. However, the other fixed point namely = 0, is indeed
a bifurcation point since there is a sudden change in the nature of stability:
while at = 0, the real part of the eigenvalue vanishes and we are left with a
center at the origin, for < 0, there is an unstable focus and unstable node
for the fixed point (0, 0) corresponding to the respective cases of 2 < 4 and
2 4.
Bifurcation is thus concerned with the qualitative sudden changes with the
model, namely, the phase portraits changing in a non-continuous way, as the
underlying parameters controlling the system undergo variation. Bifurcations
play a leading role in the theory of nonlinear dynamics. A complete treatment
of such a subject is beyond the scope of this book. We give a few illustrative
examples to show how bifurcations occur in physical systems. To this end we
consider four types of bifurcations:
(i) Saddle-node bifurcation
(ii) Transcritical bifurcation
(iii) Pitchfork bifurcation
(iv) Hopf bifurcation
152 Advanced Classical Mechanics
The first three types deal with real eigenvalues while in the fourth one
complex eigenvalues are relevant.
We consider an autonomous differential equation
dx
= f (x, ), x R, R (5.130)
dt
involving some parameter . To detect bifurcation points we write down the
linearized flow and search for those parameter values for which the fixed point
has a zero or purely imaginary eigenvalue:
f (x, )
f (x, ) = 0, |(x,) = = 0 (5.132)
x
where x is a bifurcation point and is the critical value of the parameter
where the bifurcation arises.
We now turn to a discussion of the four types of bifurcations as mentioned
above.
f f 2f
= = 0, 6= 0, 6= 0, (5.133)
x x2
A typical model equation admitting a saddle-point bifurcation is
dx
= f (x) = x2 , x R, R (5.134)
dt
For > 0, the equilibrium or fixed points are at
x+ = , x = (5.135)
while for < 0, there is no fixed point because of the reality of x. Of the two
fixed points, it can be very easily checked that the one at is a node and the
one at is a repeller. What happens at the point = 0? We notice that
there is an abrupt jump in the number of fixed points as passes through the
zero value and a bifurcation occurs at = 0: the solution x+ = is a stable
one, in contrast, the other one corresponding to x+ = is unstable. The
bifurcation diagram is shown in Figure 5.11.
Dynamical systems: An overview 153
All All
All
All All
FIGURE 5.11: Saddle-node bifurcation. The solid line represents the stable
portion and the dashed line represents the unstable portion.
f 2f 2f
= = 0, 2
6= 0, 6= 0, (5.136)
x x x
Here a typical model equation admitting a transcritical bifurcation is
dx
= f (x) = x x2 , x R, R (5.137)
dt
The equilibrium or fixed points are at the points 0 and . To examine their
characters we find the following features:
All
All
f 3f 2f
= = 0, 6
= 0, 6= 0, (5.140)
x x3 x
For a pitchfork bifurcation a typical model equation is
dx
= f (x) = x x3 , x R, R (5.141)
dt
The equilibrium or fixed points are at
x+ = , x = , x0 = 0 (5.142)
We immediately notice that for < 0, the system has only one fixed point
at x0 = 0. It is stable. On the other hand, for > 0 the number of fixed
points are two, namely, and , both of which are stable but in this
case x0 = 0 is unstable. Figure 5.13 gives the supercritical bifurcation dia-
gram which is of pitchfork type. It is to be observed that the curve for = 0
simply passes through the origin and does not cut the abscissa anywhere else.
However for a positive the cubic meets the abscissa at three points. The sub-
critical pitchfork bifurcation diagram, for which the model equation stands as
dx 3
dt = f (x) = x + x , is illustrated in Figure 5.14.
Dynamical systems: An overview 155
S' S'
X j
1 I ------------3> J1
I 1
I
FIGURE 5.13: Supercritical pitchfork bifurcation.
........ _ i
c----- ____ r
'. -------------- ? J-L
-~-
-- - - - - -/-----::1
, 1
.- ----1
x = y, y = (x2 )y x (5.145)
the equilibrium point can be seen to be located at (0, 0), the origin. The
underlying Jacobi matrix for the linearized system is given by
0 1
M = (5.146)
1
Its eigenvalues are easily determined which have a common real part 2 and
p
imaginary parts 2i 4 2 . The real part is seen to vanish at = 0 at which
point the imaginary part is nonzero: Im = 1. Further the derivative of the
real part with respect to at = 0 is 12 which is nonzero. Hence the two
conditions of Hopf bifurcation theorem are satisfied. Now, as just noted, the
real part of the eigenvalues is positive for > 0 and negative for < 0. So
Dynamical systems: An overview 157
the equilibrium is an unstable focus for > 0 but stable for < 0. However,
there is a stable periodic orbit (limit cycle) if > 0 for the system (5.144) (see
Exercise 10) and hence our conclusion is that at = 0 there is a supercritical
bifurcation.
Another case of supercritical bifurcation occurs for the system
r = r( r2 ), = 1, r0 (5.147)
r = r + 2r3 r5 , = 1, r0 (5.149)
For small values of r it is clear that the equilibrium point exists at the
origin (0, 0), i.e., at r = 0: it is a stable focus for < 0 but an unstable one
for > 0. For = 0, however, the origin is unstable.
Let us focus on the interval 1 < < 0. The radial equation admits of a
factorization in the following form:
r = r(r 1 + z)(r + 1 + z)(r 1 z)(r + 1 z) (5.151)
where z = 1 + . Note that in the interval 1 < < 0, both 1 + z and
1 zare positive quantities.
We therefore identify two limit cycles of radii
r1 = 1 + z and r2 = 1 z. Further, r changes sign as follows: it is negative
in 0 < r < r1 , positive in r1 < r < r2 and again negative for r > r2 . We
therefore observe that the limit cycle r1 = 1 z is unstable but r2 = 1 + z
is stable.
158 Advanced Classical Mechanics
5.9 Summary
In this chapter we conducted a broad survey of some of the major issues
of a dynamical system. As is widely recognized, a modern treatment of clas-
sical mechanics is incomplete without an insight from the standard ideas and
techniques of dynamical systems. Among them are essentially the theory of
stability, limit cycles and bifurcations. (We refrained from giving any treat-
ment on chaos which is beyond the scope of this book). To approach these
ideas we first provided the definitions of various concepts that frequently ap-
pear in dynamical systems. We placed a greater emphasis on the linear systems
and discussed how the process of linearization can be carried out for different
classes of nonlinear systems under certain suitable conditions. In this regard
many guided examples were worked out. We discussed the LotkaVolterra
model which is a popular model for prey-predator species. We considered sta-
bility of solutions and the role of the Lyapunov function. The concept of limit
cycles was explained by means of models including the one of Van der Pol os-
cillator. Several aspects of bifurcations were treated through model examples.
Exercises
1. Show that the origin of the system
x = x y 3 x2 y 2 , y = x y + x2 + y 2
is a stable focus.
2. Obtain the Lyapunov function for the system
x = xy y 3 x3 y 2 , y = xy x2
What is the character of the origin?
Dynamical systems: An overview 159
x + x x + x3 = 0
5. For the Brusselator model
x = 1 (1 + b)x + x2 y, y = bx x2 y
show by carrying out an analysis based on the Jacobian determinant method
for b < 2 there is a stable spiral mode where in the range 2 < b < 4 we have
a spiral repellor.
6. Find an appropriate Lyapunov function for the system
x = x + 2y 3 2y 4 , y = x y + xy
to show that the origin is an asymptotically stable point.
7. Show for the system
x = y + x(1 x2 y 2 ), y = x + y(1 x2 y 2 )
there exists an annulus bounded by the circles of radii 12 and 2 that contains
no fixed point. By the help of PoincareBendixson theorem deduce that there
is at least one limit cycle in this annulus.
8. Determine the equation of the flow for the above equation in polar
coordinates in the form
r2 e2t 1
t (r, ) = [( ) 2 , + t]]
1 r2 + r2 e2t
and also show that the unit circle describes a periodic orbit with period 2.
9. Use the PoincareBenedixson theorem to show that the system
1 1
x = y + x(1 2x2 2y 2 ), y = x + y(1 x2 y 2 )
4 2
admits a limit cycle inside the trapping region 12 r 2. Show that there is
a smaller region given by 12 r 1 containing the orbit.
10. Show that a stable periodic orbit exists for the system
x + (x2 )x + x = 0
x + (x2 )x + x = 0
160 Advanced Classical Mechanics
can be converted to the Van der Pol form by differentaiting it with respect to
time and putting y = x. Show that both the equations have the same first-
order representation.
12. Analyze the following equations with regard to their bifurcation prop-
erties:
(i)x = f (x) = 1 + x + x2
x
(v)x = f (x) = x +
1 + x2
13. Study the pitchfork bifurcation for the system
x = x + y + sin x, y = x y
where is a parameter.
14. Analyze the system
3 3
x = x y (x + y)(x2 + y 2 ), y = x + y + ( x y)(x2 + y 2 )
2 2
for Hopf bifurcation.
15. Consider the Brusselator model involving an additional parameter
x = (1 + b)x + x2 y, y = bx x2 y
Discuss the stability of the fixed points and the existence of a limit cycle.
Comment on the Hopf bifurcation if = 1.
Chapter 6
Action principles
161
162 Advanced Classical Mechanics
S'
S'
S'
S'
We now look into the consequences of (6.1) for the change in the La-
grangian. We find
n
X L L
L = qi + qi
i=1
qi qi
n n
X L d L d X L
= qi + qi
i=1
qi dt qi dt i=1 qi
n
d X L
= qi (6.2)
dt i=1 qi
where we have used Lagranges equations of motion which hold on the actual
trajectory. The appearance of total time derivative in the right-hand side of
(6.2) implies that if we integrate from an initial time t0 to the final time t1 ,
then Z t1 n
X L
Ldt = qi |tt10 (6.3)
t0 i=1
q i
Now writing Z t1
S[qi ] = L(qi , qi , t)dt, i = 1, 2, ..., n (6.4)
t0
compared with neighboring virtual paths (i.e., which are geometrically possi-
ble) having the same terminal points (namely, P0 and P1 ) as the actual trajec-
tory. In other words, the time integral of the Lagrangian is an extremum: (6.6)
is also called Hamiltons action principle. It was first proposed by Hamilton in
183435 and later extended to nonstationary constraints by Ostrogradsky in
1848. The principle of stationary action owes its formulation to Pierre Louis
Maupertuis who proposed it in 1744 in analogy to Fermats Principle of Least
Time and Leonhard Euler who established Maupertuiss idea in the same
year.
We have thus far exploited Lagranges equations of motion to arrive at
Hamiltons principle of stationary action (6.6). The converse also works. Since
Z t1 Z t1 n
X L d L
S = Ldt = qi dt
t0 t0 i=1
qi dt qi
where qi are arbitrary independent variations, S = 0 provides Lagranges
equations of motion
d L L
= 0, i = 1, 2, ..., n
dt qi qi
Proposition:
Rt Rt dF
The functionals t01 L(q, q, t)dt and t01 L(q, q, t) + dt dt lead to the same
equations of motion.
Proof:
Z t1
0 dF
S = L(q, q, t) + dt
t0 dt
Z t1
= L(q, q, t)dt + [F (t1 ) F (t0 )]
t0
S 0 = S + [F (t1 ) F (t0 )]
Action principles 165
It is obvious that the second term in the right-hand side vanishes. Hence by
the principle of stationary action S 0 = S = 0 and we are led to a similar set
of equations of motion from both S and S 0 .
We conclude this section by making a few remarks on the passive and
active points of view. In the passive point of view, if C represents the path
of an actual motion, then the observer in the unprimed reference frame will
write his action as Z t1
S[C] = L(q, q, t)dt
t0
On the other hand, the observer in the primed reference frame will write his
action as Z t01
S[C] = L0 (q 0 , q0 , t0 )dt0
t00
0
Since dt0 is not expected to be equal to dt, i.e., dtdt 6= 1, the functional form
of L and L0 would, in general, be different. However, the form of Lagranges
equations, obtained from the stationary character of the action, one for the
unprimed system and one for the primed system, would be similar. This is
known as covariance:
d L L
= ,
dt q q
d L0 L0 dq 0
0
= 0
, q 0 0
dt q q dt
6.2 Corollaries
(a) Hamiltons principle from DAlemberts principle
Rt
The integral t01 (T V )dt is stationary for an actual trajectory in compar-
ison with neighboring paths having coordinates of the end points fixed along
with the terminal time instants.
Proof:
We know from DAlemberts principle that for a set of applied forces F~ia
the following holds:
XN
(F~a mi r~i ). r~i = 0i
i=1
Since d
dt ( r
~i ) d
= dt ri ) = r~i , it can also be expressed in the form
(~
N X N
X d
mi (r~i . r~i ) r~i . r~i = F~ia . r~i
i=1
dt i=1
Identifying thePsecond term in the left-hand side as the variation of the kinetic
N
energy T = 12 j=1 mj |r~j |2 and the right-hand side as the virtual work W
for the applied forces we have the relation
N
X d
mi [ (r~i . r~i )] = T + W (6.7)
i=1
dt
Integrating between t0 and t1 and noting that the coordinates of the end
points are fixed there, the left-hand side clearly vanishes yielding
Z t1
(T + W )dt = 0 (6.8)
t0
We can write
Z t1 Z t1 Z N
t1 X
Ldt = Ldt = (pi qi H)dt
t0 t0 t0 i=1
using the definition of the Hamiltonian. Taking the variation we can express
the right-hand side as
Z N
t1 X
H H
pi qi + qi pi qi dt
t0 i=1
pi qi
d
But qi = dt (qi ) implying that we can write
Z t1 Z t1 Z t1
d
(pi qi )dt = pi (qi )dt = pi .qi dt
t0 t0 dt t0
H H
qi = , pi =
pi qi
168 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 6.1
ds 2 u(x, t) 2
( ) =1+( ) (6.15)
dx x
enabling us to write
r
u(x, t) 2 1 u(x, t) 2
dW = T [ 1 + ( ) 1]dx = T ( ) dx (6.16)
x 2 x
Thus the total potential energy which is the work done while the string is
stretched to its displaced state from the equilibrium postion is
Z l
1 u(x, t) 2
V = T( ) dx (6.17)
0 2 x
170 Advanced Classical Mechanics
1 u 2 1 u(x, t) 2
L=
( ) T ( ) ] (6.20)
2 t 2 x
To derive the equations of motion for such a Lagrangian we can use Hamil-
tons principle by considering the variation u(x, t) on u for fixed end points
in time
2u 2
2 u T
= c , c2 = (6.26)
t2 x2
Action principles 171
which gives the transverse equation of motion of a uniform string. Note that c
has the dimension of velocity and is the propagation velocity of the transverse
waves. Equation (6.26) represents a one-dimensional linear wave equation.
To look for a general solution of (6.26) we invoke a change of variables
specified by = x ct, = x + ct which transform it to the form u = 0.
It transpires immediatey that its solution has a separable form consisting of
arbitrary function of and . Taking cue from it we can express the general
solution of (6.26) in the form
(6.30) is called DAlemberts solution for the wave equation. It shows that the
solution depends only upon the initial value functions specified at x ct and
x + ct and on the integral of g evaluated between these two points. In the case
of zero initial velocity we have a simple superposition
1 1
u(x, t) = f (x + ct) + g(x ct) (6.31)
2 2
showing two waves travelling to the right and left with the same speed c.
To show that DAlemberts solution is well-posed we take a set of two
solutions u1 and u2 corresponding, respectively, to two initial specifications of
functions f1 , f2 and g1 , g2 . Suppose that
where Cn and Dn are arbitrary constants and can be fixed from the initial
conditions.
To this end we make use of the first condition in (6.28) to write down
X nx
u(x, 0) = f (x) = Cn sin (6.42)
n=1
l
which on inversion gives
Z l
2 nx
Cn = f (x) sin dx (6.43)
l 0 l
On the other hand, if we differentiate with respect to t and use the second of
(6.28) then
X nc nx
ut (x, 0) = g(x) = Dn sin (6.44)
n=1
l l
On inverting this gives for Dn
Z l
2 nx
Dn = g(x) sin dx (6.45)
nc 0 l
We wish to remark that in the case of zero initial velocity the solution
(6.41) because of (6.45) reduces to
X nx nct
u(x, t) = Cn sin cos (6.46)
n=1
l l
dq 0
dt dq dq dt
L q 0 , 0 , t0 dt0 = L q + q, 1 + , t + t 1 +
dt dt dt dt dt
dq dq dt dq dt
= L q + q, +{ }, t + t 1 +
dt dt dt dt dt
dq L dq dt dq L L dt
= L q, , t + q +{ } + t 1+
dt q dt dt dt q t dt
dq L L dq dt L dt
= L q, , t + q + q + t + L
dt q q dt dt t dt
Action principles 175
where we have kept only the first order quantities in q, t and used Taylor
expansion
An interesting special case of (6.52) is that when the the system is conser-
vative and scleronomic having its kinetic energy as a homogeneous function of
velocities. Corresponding to the Hamiltonian H and the canonical momentum
p we then have
t
S = [pq Ht]t10 (6.53)
For N number of particles, (6.53) can be extended to
Z t1 N
X t
S Ldt = [pi qi Ht]t10 (6.54)
t0 i=1
176 Advanced Classical Mechanics
p qP
ds 2
where I is given by I = 2(H V ) m( d ) . Thus I may be looked upon
as a function of the generalized coordinates (q1 , q2 , ..., qN ) and the derivatives
( dq 1 dq2 dqN 0 0 0 0 dqi
d , d , ..., d ) denoted by (q1 , q2 , ..., qN ) where qi d , i = 1, 2, ..., N .
Proposition:
where i = 1, 2, ..., N .
Proof:
Since the variations qr are arbitrary and independent, the proposition follows.
Action principles 179
Example 6.2:
where C is a constant.
Here H = E, V = (r) and in the (r, ) plane ds2 = dr2 +r2 d2 . Therefore
Z t1
A = 2T 2T dt
t0
Z t1
r
p X ds 2
= 2(H V ) m( ) dt
t0 dt
Z t1 p qX
= 2(E ) mds2
t0
Z P1 p r
X ds
= 2(E ) m( )2 d
P0 d
Z P1 p r
dr d
= 2(E ) ( )2 + r2 ( )2 d
P0 d d
where r0 d
dr
, 0 d
d d I
. Since is an ignorable coordinate we deduce d ( 0 ) =
I
0 from (6.64). As a result 0 = constant. Let the constant be 2C implying
p r2 0
2(E ) = 2C
r02 +r 2 02
S'
S'
S'
S'
S'
The integral above has the same form as that of an action with x playing
the role of a generalized coordinate and z that of time. The integrand
defines the following Lagrangian:
1
1 + ( dx
2 2
dz )
L = 1
[v 2 + 2g(z z)] 2
1
1 + x02 2 dx
= 1 , x0 =
[v 2 + 2g(z z)] 2 dz
= L(x, x0 , z) (6.68)
Note x is an ignorable coordinate here.
1 C 2 v 2 2gC 2 z (v 2 + 2gz)
a= , b= (6.73)
2gC 2 2g
Setting
ab a+b
z = ( )( ) cos (6.74)
2 2
facilitates integration since we get the form
Z r
a+b 1 + cos
dx = ( ) sin d (6.75)
2 1 cos
182 Advanced Classical Mechanics
which implies
a+b
x= ( sin ) + constant (6.76)
2
The variables z and x provide the curve for minimum time, the brachis-
tochrone, in parametric form with both x and z appearing as functions of
. The curve can be easily recognized to be a cycloid.
6.8 Summary
We gave a general treatment of an action principle by taking recourse to
variations which puts it in an elegant integral representation with the La-
grangian serving as the integrand between two terminal points of time. What
the action principle says is that of all the possible paths, as the system traces
out a trajectory from a given initial time t0 to a final time t1 , the actual path,
which is a solution of the equation of motion, is the one for which the action is
an extremum. Interesting corollaries that follow from the action principle are
the Lagrangian equations of motion and the Hamiltons canonical equations
of motion. We considered the extended point transformations which are rele-
vant for moving boundary problems and derived a particular variant of action
principle. We also addressed briefly the brachistochrone problem.
Exercises
1. Consider the integral
Z t1 p
f (x) 1 + x2 dt (6.77)
t0
involving a function f (x). Show that the extremum of the integral leads to
the differential equation for f (x)
1 + x2 = cf (x)2 (6.78)
where c is a constant.
2. A particle oscillates in a straight line about a center of force which varies
as the distance. By integrating from t0 to t deduce the action in the form
(x20 + x2 ) cos (t t0 ) 2xx0
(6.79)
2 sin (t t0 )
for a varied path. Show that the difference I = I1 I is given by the integral
representation Z t1
d
I = [f + (f t)]dt (6.83)
t0 dt
Chapter 7
Motion in noninertial coordinate
systems
185
186 Advanced Classical Mechanics
z'
0'
S'
y'
x'
FIGURE 7.1: Rotating coordinate system S fixed in the rigid body R and
inertial coordinate system S 0 fixed in space.
z'
z p
r
-r'
y'
0'
ii
0
X S'
y x'
s
FIGURE 7.2: Position of a particle at P viewed from two coordinate systems
S and S 0 .
and rot specify the roles of a fixed observer in S 0 and someone rotating with
the rigid body.
To derive the governing equations of a motion of a particle moving relative
to a rotating frame, let us imagine that the coordinate frame S 0 has been set
up in a fixed star and the rigid body is our Earth itself. We neglect the orbital
motion of Earth around the Sun and assume the Earth to be a perfect sphere.
Let P be the position of a particle at time t with OP ~ = ~r and O~0 P = r~0 . If
~
0 ~ 0
O O = ~a then it is clear from Figure 7.2 that r = ~r + ~a. As such the velocity
of the particle at P when measured from O0 would read
d ~0
d d~a
~u r = ~r + (7.3)
dt fixed dt fixed dt
d
To estimate dt fixed ~r we substitute the relationship (7.2) between the
fixed and a rotating frame replacing ~ by ~r. In consequence we get from (7.3)
d~r d~a
~u + ~ ~r + (7.4)
dt rot dt
The first term in the right-hand side of (7.4) gives the velocity of the particle
relative to the rotating frame S, the second term appears as a result of the
rotation of the OXY Z frame and the third term represents the so-called drag
velocity. The drag velocity can be ignored if the distance vector between the
points O and O0 does not change with time.
To derive an expression for the acceleration of the particle at P as measured
from O0 , we operate upon (7.4) by the derivative dt d
fixed :
2
d2~a
d d ~ 0
d d~r d
~u r = + (~
~
r )+
dt fixed dt2 fixed dt fixed dt rot dt fixed dt2
(7.5)
188 Advanced Classical Mechanics
2
d d~r d ~r d~r
= 2
+
~
dt fixed dt rot dt rot dt rot
d d
~r) =
(~ ~r)
(~ ~ (~
+ ~r) (7.6)
dt fixed dt rot
Substituting (7.6) in (7.5) we obtain
!
d2 r~0 d2~a
d~u d~
= + ~ (~
~r) + ~r
dt fixed dt2 dt2 dt rot
fixed 2
d~r d ~r
+2~ + (7.7)
dt rot dt2 rot
Note that the first three terms in the right-hand side of (7.7) survive even
when P is stationary relative to the rotating frame
2
d~r d ~r
S: = =0 (7.8)
dt rot dt2 rot
2
Ignoring the ddt~2a term by assuming that the distance OO ~ 0 is not changing
with time and observing that in an inertial frame Newtons second law implies
that
d~u
m = F~ (7.9)
dt fixed
with F~ representing the vector sum of the forces acting on the particle, we
have from (7.7)
d~v
m = F~ 2m(~ ~v ) m~ (~
~r) m~ ~r (7.10)
dt
where we have set
2
d~r d~v d ~r d~
~v = , = and ~ =
(7.11)
dt rot dt dt2 rot dt rot
and dropped the suffixes fixed and rot without causing any confusion. It
should be clear that ~v is the velocity relative to the rotating frame.
Equation (7.10) is similar in form to Newtons equation. However, apart
from F~ , its right-hand side, is also influenced by fictitious forces, namely,
the Coriolis force 2m(~v ~ ), the centrifugal force m~ (~r
~ ) and the
transverse or azimuthal force due to the non-uniform rotation m ~ ~r. The
Motion in noninertial coordinate systems 189
z'
z p
r
-r'
y'
0'
ii
0
X S'
y x'
s
FIGURE 7.3: Typical three-dimensional motion with rotation about the
zaxis.
latter can be neglected for a uniform rotation. Note that a fictitious force
is due to an accelerated frame of reference. The form of the Coriolis term
implies that it is always perpendicular to the direction of velocity and so it
can never change the speed of a particle (except, of course, for its direction).
As a result, the Coriolis force does not contribute to the energy equation. The
Coriolis force is also referred to as a deflecting force.
Writing F~ = V r , where V (~
~ r) is the potential, we can easily verify that
the Lagrangian for (7.10) is
1
L= m[v 2 + 2~v (~ ~r)2 ] U
~r) + (~ (7.12)
2
in which the velocity-dependent potential U is given by
1
U = V (~r) ~v (~ ~r)2
~r) m(~ (7.13)
2
Consider a typical three-dimensional motion with rotation about the
zaxis (see Figure 7.3) and assuming
~ constant (= ):
~ = ~k
(7.14)
= (cos er sin e ) (7.15)
where er , e are the unit basis vectors in the ~r and ~ directions, respectively.
Noting that
~v = rer + (r)e
d~v 1 d 2
= (r r2 )er + (r )e (7.16)
dt r dt
~ ~r
= (cos er sin e ) rer = r sin e
190 Advanced Classical Mechanics
~ ~v = (r sin + r cos )e
(7.17)
ur = r, u = r, u = r sin (7.19)
Substituting (7.16), (7.17), (7.18), (7.19) in (7.10) we arrive at the following
expressions of the various components of acceleration in a non-inertial rotating
frame:
d2~r
~ 2m~ d~r
m = m~
g + F m~
(~
~r) (7.23)
dt2 rot dt rot
192 Advanced Classical Mechanics
g~ = ~g ~ ~r)
~ ( (7.24)
The right-hand side of (7.24) is a combination of gravitational and centrifugal
forces. Thus a ball released near the Earths surface will fall with acceleration
g~ . Because of the negative sign of the vector ~ ( ~ ~r) which points
radially outward, g~ in the Northern hemisphere will point to the south of the
Earths center.
The horizontal and vertical components of g~ are ghor = 2 r sin cos and
gver = g 2 r sin2 . At the pole g = g while on the equator g = g 2 r.
Substituting (7.24) in (7.23) and writing ~g in place of g~ we have the
formula
d2~r d~r
= m~g + F~ 2m~
m (7.25)
dt2 dt
where the suffix rot is dropped. The components of
~ being (0, sin , cos ),
where is the angle between the direction of Earths axis and g~ , the Coriolis
force is given by
d~r
2m~
= 2m(y cos z sin , x cos , x sin ) (7.26)
dt
d~
r
where dt (x, y, z).
The underlying Lagrangian for the planar motion (7.27) is given by the
form
1 mg 2
L= m(x2 + y 2 ) + m cos (xy y x) (x + y 2 ) (7.28)
2 2l
A straightforward way to solve (7.27) is to set r = x + iy that results in
the following complex linear equation:
r + 2ik r + 02 r = 0 (7.29)
The square of the modulus of r(t) turns out to be |r(t)|2 = a2 cos2 0 t. This
speakspof a simple harmonic motion with amplitude a and frequency 0 '
0 = gl . The representations of (7.32) show that we have a superposition of
slowly varying amplitudes given by the quantities a cos t and a sin t.
During initial times (i.e., near t = 0) (or if being say close to the zero
value near the equator where = 2 ), the oscillation of the pendulum tends to
be simple harmonic entirely in the xdirection, i.e., in the north-south plane.
However, with passage of time (additionally can acquire nonzero values),
the amplitude of the ycoordinate grows reflecting an oscillation that has
picked up an east-west component.
Finally from (7.32) we can determine the angle of inclination of the mo-
y(t)
tion by evaluating the ratio tan x(t) which turns out to be tan t
implying = t. It means that the pendulum is rotating with an angular
velocity which is opposite to the direction of the rotation of the Earth.
More specifically, in the Northern hemisphere where > 0, we have a clock-
wise rotation of the plane of oscillation of the Foucault pendulum while in
the Southern hemisphere it is just the opposite: the rotation of the plane of
oscillation takes place in the counterclockwise direction.
194 Advanced Classical Mechanics
T = T0 + T1 + T2 (7.37)
Pn V T0
where we have used dV dt =
V
j=1 qj qj + t and also qj = 0. The above
equation implies that the time rate of change of the total energy is
n
dE X 0 d
= Qj qj + (T1 + 2T0 ) (T V ) (7.40)
dt j=1
dt t
we therefore have
n
X
F~jcor .v~j = 0 (7.42)
j=1
7.3 Summary
This chapter was devoted to the investigation of motion in a noninertial co-
ordinate system. After dealing with the general form of the equation of motion
for rotating frames, the roles of the Coriolis force and effective gravitational
constant were reviewed. We also discussed Foucaults pendulum which is a
196 Advanced Classical Mechanics
device for observing the effects of the Coriolis force and noted the typical im-
plications that follow. Finally we dealt with the situation when a system is
acted upon by nonpotential forces.
Exercises
7.4 Examples
1. Find the deflection of a freely falling body from the vertical caused by
Earths rotation.
Solution: For a particle dropped from rest from a height h above the ground
the motion is described by the equations
1
x = 0, y = 0, z = h gt2
2
where we have only considered gravity and neglected any effect of the
q Coriolis
force. The time that the particle will take to hit the ground is t = 2h
g . The
corresponding velocities are
x = 0, y = 0, z = g
To find the effect of Coriolis force on the equation of motion (7.25) we make
use of these velocities in (7.26) to arrive at the following component equations:
mx = 2mgt sin , my = 0, mz = gt
where we used x = 0, x = 0 at t = 0.
We thus conclude that there will be an easterly deviation from the vertical
3 1/2
by an amount 13 8hg sin .
A
mg
FIGURE 7.6: Motion of bead sliding along a smooth circular wire rotating
with angular velocity .
and discuss the energy conservation equation. Take a to be the radius of the
wire and set = ng
p
a where n is a parameter.
,
~ = ez = ( cos er + sin e )
The centrifugal force has the magnitude = m 2 N~P = m 2 a sin and acts
horizontally outward along N~P . Obviously this force has a relevance in
rotating frames only.
From the second relation of (7.20), the cross-radial equation of motion
reads
1 d 2
m. (a ) = mg sin + (m 2 a sin ) cos
a dt
or, a = g sin + ng sin cos
where we have put a 2 = ng. Integration gives
1 mga
ma2 2 + (1 n cos )2 = constant
2 2n
This is essentially the energy conservation equation in a rotating frame with
1 2 2
2 ma representing the kinetic energy and the potential energy is given by
mga
V (n, ) = (1 n cos )2
2n
198 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Differentiations yield
dV
= mga sin (1 n cos )
d
d2 V
= mga[cos (1 n cos ) + n sin2 ]
d2
Therefore dV 1
d = 0 at = 0 (namely, the lowest point A) and also at cos = n
for n > 1. Now a minimum of V corresponds to the position of relative stable
equilibrium and a maximum of V corresponds to the position of relative un-
stable equilibrium.
Case 1: =0
Here
d2 V
= mga(1 n) > 0 if n < 1
d2
= 0 for n < 1 is a minimum for V
We have
d2 V
1
=n 1 2 >0
d2 n
Therefore cos = n1 is a position of relative stable equilibrium. We conclude
that new stable solutions are created at cos = n1 as n exceeds beyond the
critical value of n = 1. Such a phenomenon is an example of bifurcation.
Chapter 8
Symmetries and conserved quantities
199
200 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Let us suppose that the primed coordinates and their velocities generate a
dq 0
Lagrangian L0 (qi0 , qi0 , t0 ), i = 1, 2, ..., n, where qi0 dt0i with respect to the new
time variable t0 :
d(qi0 , t0 )
L0 (qi0 , qi0 , t0 ) = L(qi0 , qi0 , t0 ) + , i = 1, 2, ..., n (8.6)
dt0
Symmetries and conserved quantities 201
d
the term dt0 gives a vanishing contribution to Lagranges equations of motion
x0 = x cos y sin x y
0
y = y cos + x sin y + x
(8.15)
where lz stands for the z-th component of the angular momentum. Infinites-
imal rotations about the x- and y-axis can be similarly written down. When
we consider rotations in all the three directions we have r~0 ~r = ~r = ~ ~r
implying
N N
X L X
.~ri = mi~ri . ~ ~ri = ~l. ~ (8.17)
~ri
i=1 i=1
PN
where ~l = i=1 ~ri mi~ri is the total angular momentum of the system and
represents a conserved Noether quantity.
d
More generally, we make use of the non-commutativity of d and oper-
ators through a relation already written down in (6.62), namely,
d d
(q) = q + q (t) (8.18)
dt dt
Symmetries and conserved quantities 203
and adopt a similar strategy for derivation as we did to get (6.52) to arrive at
the constancy condition
L L
qi + L qi t + = constant (8.19)
qi qi
The above is the central result of Noethers theorem which states that asso-
ciated with an infinitesimal invariance transformation there is a constant of
motion and hence an associated conservation law exists.
With L
qi = pi , the generalized momentum, (8.19) can also be interpreted
in terms of the Hamiltonian H of the system for a conservative, scleronomic
system having its kinetic energy a homogeneous function of the velocities. As
we saw earlier, in such a case the quantity qi L
qi L is a constant and equals
to H. We thus have the result
pi qi Ht + = constant (8.20)
Example 8.1:
~r ~ ~r, ~r ~ ~r
L L
L = .~r + .~r
~r
~
r
= 2~r + ~r . ~ ~r + ~r + 2~r . ~ ~r
= 0
Example 8.2:
1
= m, = m2
x0 t 2
Consistency of the relations yields = 0. It implies (t) to be linear in time,
i.e.,
(t) = c1 + c2 t
1
(x, t) = mc2 x0 + mc22 t
2
where c1 and c2 are arbitrary constants. Thus x0 is of the form x0 = x +
c1 + c2 t which is a combination of spatial displacement (c2 = 0) and Galilean
transformation (c2 6= 0). It also follows that a transformation to a uniformly
accelerating frame does not constitute an invariant transformation.
Symmetries and conserved quantities 205
z = v, mv = F (z, v, t) (8.23)
where F (z, v, t) is some force function which depends on the coordinate, ve-
locity and time in a very general setting. For an autonomous system we have
the reduced form
U (tf , ti )[r1 (ti ), ..., rn (ti )] = [r1 (tf ), ..., rn (tf )] (8.25)
Should the equations of motion not depend upon time t explicitly, it is
evident that U (tf , ti ) would depend only on the difference tf ti and we
denote in such a case
U = U ( ) = U (, 0), = tf ti (8.26)
We are then led to an invariance under time translation:
2 A.D. Boozer, Dynamical symmetries in classical mechanics, Eur. J. Phys. 33(2012) 73.
206 Advanced Classical Mechanics
(1). The case of the free particle for which the force function F (z; v) = 0.
Here U ( ) is given by
U ( )(z, v) = (z + v, v)
a 2
U ( )(z, v) = (z + v + , v + a )
2
For the new set of dynamical variables (r10 , r20 , ..., rn0 ) let us define a corre-
sponding evolution operator U 0 (tf , ti ) such that
U 0 (tf , ti )[r10 (ti ), ..., rn0 (ti )] = [r10 (tf ), ..., rn0 (tf )] (8.31)
We therefore deduce
U 0 (tf , ti )(ti )[r1 (ti ), ..., rn (ti )] = (tf )[r1 (tf ), ..., rn (tf )]
= (tf )U (tf , ti )[r1 (ti ), ..., rn (ti )] (8.32)
where for the second equality we have used (8.25). Consistency requires
For the time independent case when (t) = , we get the simple commutative
condition
U (tf , ti ) = U (tf , ti ) (8.36)
The operator method is a powerful approach for providing connections to
discrete symmetries. Let us try for the operations of parity and time-reversal.
P : z z, v v (8.37)
a 2 a 2
P U ( )[z, v] = P [(z + v + , v + a )] = [z v , v a ] (8.41)
2 2
but
a 2
U ( )P [z, v] = U [z, v] = [(z v + , v + a )] (8.42)
2
T : t t (8.43)
Like the parity, the time-reversal transformation is discontinuous too and so
not amenable to the treatment of Section 8.1. Note that the discontinuous
character means that the underlying transformation cannot be developed from
a series of infinitesimal transformations as is true for the continuous case.
If the system undergoes a time-reversal change, the transformed equations
of motion will be given by a similar set as in (8.24):
U 0 ( ) = T U ( )T 1 (8.46)
We therefore arrive at the result
T U ( ) = U ( )T (8.47)
Time reversal implies that the role of time is reversed, in other words, there is
a reversal of motion. In Newtonian mechanics in which the second law is the
Symmetries and conserved quantities 209
same with regard to the explicit replacement t t, time reversal means that
the particle retraces its path and ultimately arrives at the point it started from
with a reversed momentum. Note that time-reversal invariance is not obeyed
in our previously considered example of a damped particle.
where ~ri denotes the ith position of a particle with respect to a fixed origin.
Clearly G is restricted to be finite since a material particle has neither an
infinite momentum nor can it be infinitely away from the origin.
Translation of the origin by a finite amount ~r0 leaves G invariant:
N
X
0
G = p~i . (~ri ~r0 )
i=1
N
X
= G ~r0 p~i
i=1
= G
N
X
G = p~i .~ri + p~i~ri
i=1
N
X
= 2T + F~i .~ri
i=1
= 2T + W
where T Pis the kinetic energy and W is called the virial of the system. Like
N
G, W = i=1 F~i .~ri too is independent of the choice of origin for the system
at rest.
210 Advanced Classical Mechanics
G( ) G(0)
= lim
= 0
where f~ij , i, j = 1, 2 are the inter-particle forces and we have used Newtons
third law. If V12 = |~r2 ~ r1 | is the inter-particle potential ( a constant) then
f~12 is
(~r2 ~r1 )
f~12 = (8.51)
|~r2 ~r1 |3
It shows
f~12 .(~r2 ~r1 ) = = V12 (8.52)
|~r2 ~r1 |
As such W represents the total potential energy V (= V12 ) of the system
and implies
1 1
T = W = V (8.53)
2 2
From the conservation of total energy we can write the above result as
1
E = T = V (8.54)
2
Virial theorem is of great importance in many branches of physics especially
in statistical mechanics. It does not depend on the notion of the temperature
and holds even for systems that are not in thermal equilibrium.
8.4 Summary
The purpose of this chapter was to investigate the role of symmetry, essen-
tially the dynamical ones, in classical mechanics. We gave a simple derivation
of the condition of invariance from which we extracted the essence of Noethers
Symmetries and conserved quantities 211
theorem which holds for a continuous class of symmetries. After working out
a number of examples we discussed the problem of dynamical symmetry fol-
lowing an operator approach in which the notion of an evolution operator was
employed. The operator method allows one to address discrete symmetries
such as the parity and time-reversal operations. We also considered briefly
the virial theorem.
Exercises
1. Consider a ray of light traveling from the point P0 to the point P1
through the point of reflection at the point (x, 0) on a mirror M. Calculate
the time taken and hence derive the law of reflection.
2. Consider two mediums S0 and S1 characterized, respectively, by the
index of refraction n0 and index of refraction n1 . Calculate the time taken for
the light traveling from the point P0 to the point P1 through the point (x, 0).
Hence, derive Snells law of refraction.
3. Show that the shortest distance between two points in a plane is a
straight line.
4. Show that the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a
sphere is a great circle.
5. Find the equation of the curve which makes the surface area of revolution
generated by rotating the curve y = y(x) around the x-axis.
Chapter 9
HamiltonJacobi equation and
action-angle variables
213
214 Advanced Classical Mechanics
mechanics, the main advantage with it is that one does not have to worry with
the presence of constraint forces since the latter are eliminated by invoking
DAlemberts principle. If the system is not conservative, dissipative or driven
forces are taken into account by the non-potential terms. One important as-
pect which makes a Lagrangian system very useful is the presence of conserved
quantities whenever one or more generalized coordinates are absent from the
Lagrangian. On the other hand, the Hamiltonian, which can be derived from
the Lagrangian by effecting a Legendre transformation, is regarded as a func-
tion of the generalized coordinates qi , i = 1, 2, ..., n and generalized momenta
pi , i = 1, 2, ..., n, and appears, in a conservative system, as the sum of kinetic
and potential energies. The underlying equations of motion are given by a set
of n first order partial differential equations each for the time derivative of the
generalized coordinates and momenta. The Hamiltonian procedure is carried
out in a phase space which is a 2n-dimensional space made up of positions and
the accompanying canonical momenta and the Hamiltonian equations give the
clue as to how a system evolves in phase space. Both Lagrangian and Hamil-
tonian formalisms address the laws of mechanics without any preference to
the selection of any particular coordinate system.
The Hamiltonian procedure, however, does not always offer any simplifi-
cation to the concerned dynamical problem. But the almost symmetrical ap-
pearence of the coordinates and momenta in the guiding Hamiltons equations
facilitates development of formal theories such as the canonical transforma-
tions, HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables. Our first purpose
in this chapter will be to understand how canonical transformations are con-
structed that offer considerable simplifications in writing down the equations
of motion. The task is to transform the Hamiltonian to a new form through the
introduction of a new set of coordinates and momenta such that with respect
to the new set of variables the transformed Hamiltonian also leads to the form
of canonical equations. The utility of canonical transformation lies in the fact
that it is often possible to adopt new sets of conjugate variables through which
the basic equations get much simplified thus generating solutions that may
otherwise be very complicated to determine. The special case when all the
coordinates are cyclic yields a single partial differential equation of first order
called the HamiltonJacobi equation. In this chapter we also deal briefly with
the elements of a certain class of canonical variables called the action-angle
variables defined over a bounded phase space that emerge from a complete
separability of the HamiltonJacobi equation. Some interesting properties of
such variables are explored.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 215
Q H Q H
Q = {Q, H}(q,p) =
q p p q
P H P H
P = {P, H}(q,p) = (9.4)
q p p q
Q K Q K P Q K Q K P
Q = + +
q Q p P p p Q q P q
K Q P Q P
=
P q p p q
K
= {Q, P }(q,p)
P
K
P = {Q, P }(q,p) (9.6)
Q
These equations coincide with (9.2) provided we set {Q, P }(q,p) equal to unity:
Z Z Z Z
(Q, P )
dQdP = dqdp = [Q, P ]q,p dqdp = dqdp (9.11)
D D (q, p) D D
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 217
where we have exploited (9.7). In terms of closed line integrals we then have
by Stokess theorem
I I
pdq = P dQ (9.12)
A A
In general, for a system with n generalized coordinates qi together with
their associated momenta pi , the volume element transforms as
n
Y n
Y n
Y
dQi dPi = dqi dpi = dqi dpi (9.13)
i=1 i=1 i=1
Example 9.1:
r
2P
q= sin Q, p = 2mP cos Q
m
Inverting
1 p2
q
1 2 2
Q = tan m , P = + m q
p 2 m
Q mp Q mq
= 2 , = 2
q p + m2 2 q 2 p p + m2 2 q 2
As a result
Q P Q P
{Q, P }(q,p) =
q p p q
1 P P
= mp + mq
p2 + m2 2 q 2 p q
p
Since P
p = m ,
P
q = mq it follows that {Q, P }(q,p) = 1. Hence the trans-
formation is canonical.
218 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 9.2:
where the entries stand for the Poisson brackets. Using their properties as
furnished in (9.8) our assertion is seen to hold. We refer to J as a symplectic
matrix and the canonical transformations induced by (Q, P ) are said to be
symplectic.
In a general sense, Hamiltons equations for a 2n-dimension phase space,
defined by the generalized coordinates and generalized momenta which we
represent by a column vector X (q1 , q2 , ..., qn ; p1 , p2 , ..., pn )T (q, p)T , can
be written as
H d q q H(q, p, t)
X = A = AX H(X) V =A (9.18)
Xi dt p p H(q, p, t)
0 +In
A = (9.19)
In 0
X Yi (X) (9.20)
Yi
The Jacobian of such a transformation is Xj . Let us call it ij . The time
rate of X is then given by Y = X. Noting that
H H Yj
= = T (Y H) (9.21)
Xi Yj Xi
we get for X the equation
H
Y = X = A = AT (Y H) (9.22)
Xi
where we used (9.18).
Formally, a 2n 2n matrix A is said to be symplectic if it satisfies the
relation
AT = A (9.23)
We then see from (9.22) that the Hamiltonian equations are preserved. When
the Jacobian satisfies (9.23) in relation to the antisymmetric block matrix A
we say that the transformations are symplectic or canonical. The transformed
coordinates, occupying the top and bottom halves of the column matrix Y , in
view of the mapping (9.20), can be, respectively, identified as the new gener-
alized coordinates Q1 , Q2 , ..., Qn and generalized momenta P1 , P2 , ..., Pn .
220 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 9.3:
Q1 = q1 + q2 , Q2 = q1 + q2 , P1 = 2p1 + p2 , P2 = p2
is a canonical transformation.
We can carry out the symplectic test to determine the constants , ,
and . To this end we first write down the relevant (4 4) Jacobian matrix
which reads
Q1 Q1 Q1 Q1
q1 q2 p1 p2
Q2 Q2 Q2 Q2
q1 q2 p1 p2
=
P1 P1 P1 P1
q1 q2 p1 p2
P2 P2 P2 P2
q1 q2 p1 p2
0 0
0 0
=
0
0 2 1
0 0 0 1
Now A being
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
A =
1
0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 2 +
0 0 2 + d
AA =
2 2
(9.24)
0 0
0 0
Example 9.4:
G1 (qi , Qi , t) G1 (qi , Qi , t)
pi = , Pi = (9.35)
qi Qi
along with
G1
K=H+ (9.36)
t
The first of (9.35) gives Qi in terms of qi and pi which when substituted in
the second equation determines Pi . Of course, we assume that the Jacobian
2
of the transformations det | q i Q
G1
j
|=
6 0). K is the new Hamiltonian.
which results in
n n n
!
X X X
pi dqi + Qi dPi Hdt = d Pi Qi Kdt + dG1 (9.38)
i=1 i=1 i=1
G2 (qi , Pi , t) G2 (qi , Pi , t)
pi = , Qi = (9.41)
qi Pi
along with
G2
K=H+ (9.42)
t
The first of (9.41) gives Pi in terms of qi and pi which when substituted in
the second equation provides for Qi . The Jacobian of the transformation is
2 G2
assumed to be nonvanishing: det | q i Pj
|=
6 0 . K as given by (9.42) is the new
Hamiltonian.
The Type II canonical transformation has in its embedding both the iden-
tity as well as the point transformations. In fact, corresponding to G2 (q, P, t) =
qi Pi we see that pi = Pi , Qi = qi and K = H showing for the identity trans-
formation while for G2 (q, P, t) = (qi , t)Pi we have Qi = (qi , t) implying that
the new coordinates are functions of old coordinates.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 225
which leads to
G3 G3 G3
qi = , Pi = , K=H+ (9.44)
pi Qi t
Here the Jacobian of the transformation is assumed to be nonvanishing:
2
det | p i Q
G3
j
|=
6 0.
Example 9.5
Q = p, P = q + p2
Thus
1
G1 (q, Q) = qQ Q3
3
On the other hand, the Type 2 generating function is obtained by treating
q and P as independent variables. From (9.39) we have
G2 (q, p) = G1 + P Q
1
= qQ Q3 + (q + Q2 )Q
3
2 3
= Q
3
3
2 P q 2
=
3
Check that
G2 1 1
= (P q) 2 = p
q P
G2 1 1
= (P q) 2 = Q
P q
Example 9.6
The transformations
p
Q = q cos sin
m
P = mq sin + p cos
On other other hand, the Type 2 generating function can be obtained from
G2 = G1 + P Q. We get
1
G2 (q, Q) = m(q 2 Q2 ) cot
2
To assign the right variable dependence on G2 , namely, q and P we note that
q P
Q= tan
cos m
by eliminating p from the given transformations. Substituting for Q, G2 turns
out to be
P2
qP 1
G2 (q, P ) = m q 2 + 2 2 tan
cos 2 m
We can verify that
F2 P
= mq tan = p
q P cos
F2 q P
= tan = Q
P q cos m
Example 9.7
P2
qP 1
G2 (q, P ) = m q 2 + 2 2 tan
cos 2 m
p2
G2 1 2
= qP sin m q + 2 2 sec2
t q,P 2 m
2
P 1 2
= + mQ
2m 2
= H(Q, P )
228 Advanced Classical Mechanics
K
which vanishes for = , i.e., = t. As a consequence Q = P = 0 and
P = K
Q = 0. Hence Q and P are constants which we write as
Q = Q0 , P = P0
G2 (qi , Pi , t) G G2 (qi , Pi , t) G
pi = = Pi + , Qi = = qi + (9.48)
qi qi Pi Pi
with K = H. The departures from the exact identity are due to the presence
G G
of small quantities qi
and Pi
in pi and Qi , respectively. We can summarize
qi Qi qi and pi Pi pi as
flow following the chain given by (q(t), p(t)) (Q(t), P (t)) (q(t + t), p(t +
t)):
H H
Qi (t) = qi (t) + qi t = qi (t) + t, Pi (t) = pi (t) + pi t = pi (t) t
pi qi
(9.50)
where we Taylor expanded qi (t + t) and pi (t + t) up to O(t).
qi and pi implied by (9.49) when compared with (9.50) leads to the
identification of the Hamiltonian H with the generating function G of the
infinitesimal canonical transformation, i.e., H = G while the increment t with
the small quantity , i.e., t = . Thus, the Hamiltonian can be looked upon
as the generator of the infinitesimal transformation and the time evolution as
a one-parameter canonical transformation.
S S S S S
pi = : H(q1 , q2 , ..., qn ; , , ..., ; t) + =0 (9.52)
qi q1 q2 qn t
which is called the time-dependent HamiltonJacobi equation. More com-
pactly it is also expressed as
S S
H(qi , , t) + =0 (9.53)
qi t
A function S which is a solution of the above is called the Hamilton principal
function.
Equation (9.53) is a first-order differential equation involving the n coor-
S
dinates qi s and t. It is not linear in q i
because the partial derivatives of S
appear in higher degree than the first. Associated with the (n + 1) variables (n
qi s and t) we expect (n + 1) constants of motion namely 1 , 2 , ..., n , n+1 .
However, we notice one curious thing in (9.53) which is that the dependent
variable S itself does not appear in it: only its partial derivatives do. So one of
the constants has no bearing on the solution, i.e., the solution has an additive
constant. Disregarding such an irrelevant additive constant we write for the
complete integral of (9.54) the form
Example 9.8
S
= = k (say)
r
r
m 2E S
i.e. k= qt q= (t + k) and p = = 2m.
2 m q
m(q )2
S(q, , t) =
2t
where is a non-additive constant. This implies
S m
= = (q )
t
giving the time-dependence: q(t) = m t where can be identified as the
initial value of q while is the negative of the momentum: = p.
Example 9.9
For the harmonic oscillator problem the HamiltonJacobi equation has the
form
1
p2 + m2 2 q 2
H=
2m
S
The relation p = q gives
" 2 #
1 S 2 2 2 S
+m q + =0
2m q t
S(q : ; t) = W (q : ) t
We get " #
2
1 W 2 2 2
+m q =
2m q
which gives the integral
r
Z
m 2 q 2
W = 2m dq 1
2
Such an integral implies for
r Z
S m dq
= = q t
2 2 2
1 m2q
which integrates to r
1 1 m 2
t + = sin q
2
Hence the solutions for q and p are
r
2
q = sin (t + )
m 2
S W p
p = = = 2m m 2 q 2 = 2m cos (t + )
q q
Wi (qi ; 1 , 2 , ..., n )
Hi (qi , ) = E, i = 1, 2, ..., n (9.60)
qi
In general each Wi will contain the corresponding qi along with the set of s
but there may be situations when one Wi will contain one qi and one i for
i = 1, 2, ..., n as the following example demonstrates.
Consider a system with one degree of freedom having the Hamiltonian
p2
H=
+ V (q) (9.61)
2m
It results in the HamiltonJacobi equation
1 S 2 S
( ) + V (q) + =0 (9.62)
2m q t
Employing separation of variables we express
r Z
W p W m dx
p= = 2m( V (q)), +t= = p
q E 2 (2m(E V (q)))
(9.66)
234 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Example 9.10
1 2 2
We again focus on the harmonic oscillator potential V (q) = 2 m q .
q
2E
Putting q = m 2 sin , an integration gives from (9.65)
E
W = ( + sin cos )
Further from (9.66) we obtain
W
p= = 2mE cos
q
W
+t= =
E
Example 9.11
p2
H= + mgz = E =
2m
W
which for p = z gives the differential equation
1 dW 2
( ) + mgz =
2m dz
Exploiting the second equation of (9.66) gives
r
2p
g( + t) = E mgz
m
which on squaring leads to
1 E
z = g( + t)2 +
2 mg
On the other hand, for p we have from the first equation of (9.66)
W
p= = mg( + t)
z
If we use initial conditions that at t = 0, z = z0 , p = 0 then we have E = mgz0
and = 0 furnishing the standard expressions z = 12 gt2 + z0 and p = mgt.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 235
G1 (q, Q, t) S S(qi , Qi , t)
Type I : H(qi , pi , t) + = 0 V H(qi , , t) + =0
t qi t
(9.67)
G3 (p, Q, t) S S(pi , Qi , t)
Type III : H(qi , pi , t)+ = 0 V H( , pi , , t)+ =0
t pi t
(9.68)
G4 (pi , Pi , t) S S(pi , Pi , t)
Type IV : H(qi , pi , t)+ = 0 V H( , pi , , t)+ =0
t pi t
(9.69)
Note that in both (9.68) and (9.69) the coordinates in the HamiltonJacobi
equations appear as partial derivatives which are rather complicated to han-
dle. So these do not have much utility. The form (9.67) is relatively simpler
compared to (9.68) and (9.69) and is sometimes used but one has to remem-
ber that the Type I and Type II generating functions are related as given in
(9.39).
where for the integral we take the coordinate qi around a closed path while
other coordinates remain spectators. Replacing pi by the partial derivative
Wi (qi ;)
qi , we can express Ji as
I
Wi (qi ; )
Ji = dqi , i = 1, 2, ..., n (9.73)
qi
Since Wi depends on the variables qi s and s and qi s are integrated over,
Ji s finally become only a function of the constants 1 , 2 , ..., n :
Example 9.12
Let us take the harmonic oscillator problem for which the Hamiltonian is
1 2
H = 2m p + 12 m 2 q 2 with H = E = . The Hamiltons characteristic function
obeys
1 dW 2 1
( ) + m 2 q 2 =
2m dq 2
From (9.65) W can be put in the form
Z r
2
W = m q 2 dq
m 2
Using it and the definition for the action variable
I
W (q; )
J= dq (9.80)
q
it
q is a straightforward task to perform the integration by substituting q =
2
m2 sin and taking (0, 2) as the range for . It gives for J
J = 2
As such we can express
J
H==
2
Taking partial derivative of H with respect to J we then find for the angle
variable
=
2
Note that being the angular frequency, the angle variable coincides with the
ordinary frequency of the oscillator.
Example 9.13
These imply
x Jx y J y
x = , y =
2 2
W W
Next, the angle variables being x = Jx and y = Jy can be evaluated
x y
to be and
2 2 ,
respectively, and correspond to the ordinary frequencies in
the x and y directions.
Example 9.14
S(r, , , , t) = W (r, , , ) t
results in the corresponding equation for the characteristic function W
1 W 2 1 W 2 1 W 2
[( ) + 2( ) + 2 2 ( ) ] = = |E|
2m r r r sin r
where we have taken the energy |E| < 0 for a bound state.
Assuming separation of variables for the function W given by W = Wr (r)+
W () + W (), the above equation can be put in the form
dWr 2 1 dW 2 1 dW 2
( ) + 2( ) + 2 2 ( ) = 2m(|E| + )
dr r d r sin d r
where the partial derivatives have been replaced by ordinary derivatives.
By multiplying with r2 sin2 , the only -dependent term can be isolated
enabling us to express
dW
= = p
d
where is a constant.
Similarly carrying out separation of variables for the other two variables r
and , p and pr result from solving the corresponding differential equations.
These are
dW q
= p = 2 2 cosec2
d
and
r
dWr 2
= pr = 2m(|E| + ) 2
dr r r
and W can be obtained from the integral
240 Advanced Classical Mechanics
Z
W = (pr dr + p d + p d)
Of the three action variables, Jr , J and J , the last one J is the easiest
to evaluate. We straightforwardly find
I I I
dW
J = p d = = d = 2
d
Determination of Jr and J is relatively more complicated. First consider Jr .
It is given by
I r
2
I I
dWr
Jr = pr dr = = 2m(|E| + ) 2 dr
dr r r
If we take a partial derivative of Jr through the integral we can write it in
the way1
s
2m b
Z
Jr dr
= p
r |E| a (a r)(r b)
where a and b are the turning points where pr vanishes. From the form for pr
given above, we solve for the quadratic in r to obtain for a and b
2
a+b= , ab =
|E| 2m|E|
on comparing with the integrand of Jr . Defining = 12 (a + b) and = 12 (a b)
and making a replacement of r as r = + cos , the product (a r)(r b)
takes a simple form 2 sin2 making the integral easily tractable. We find
s
2m
Z r
Jr m 1
= ( + cos )d =
r |E| 0 2 |E| 32
which yields for Jr
s
2m
Jr = +
|E|
where is a constant.
can be determined by considering a circular orbit of radius a (and pr = 0)
when the Hamiltonian is given by
1 2 2
H= (p + 2 )
2m r r r
1 R. Hosley, Lecture notes on Hamiltonian dynamics (2014), University of Edinburgh,
unpublished.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 241
2
Hamiltonian equation pr = H r = 0 gives the value of a = m using
the above form of H. Since the Hamiltonian gives the energy of the system,
2
substituting this value of a in H implies E = 12 m
2
. We are now in a position
to estimate by setting Jr = 0 since pr = 0. Using the just determined value
of E we find = . Hence we obtain Jr as
s
2m
Jr = 2 +
|E|
We refer the readers to the Goldstein book (see bibliography at the end) for
a more improved method, involving complex integrations, for the evaluation
of Jr .
Finally, let us turn to J which reads
I I I q
dW
J = p d = = 2 2 cosec2 d
d
One way to tackle the integral is to call the ratio = cos and rewrite J
as
I p
J = 1 cos2 cosec2 d
For the closed path we define the circuit as it is traced out by running from
say, 0 to 0 and back. The value of 0 is furnished by the equation sin 0 =
cos if we look at the vanishing condition of the integrand corresponding to
such a value of . In other words, 0 is determined from as 0 = 2 . In
this way, J is completely given by
Z 0 p
J = 4 1 cos2 cosec2 d
0
where the factor of 4 occurs because by symmetry it suffices to integrate over
the range (0, 0 ) only.
The rest is straightforward. We make a change of variable cos =
sin sin which implies that for = 2 , = 0 while for = 0, = 2 .
Note that = 0 implies = 2 so that the integrand in the expression for J
does not become singular.
In this way J acquires the form
Z
2 p
J = 4 1 cos2 cosec2 d
0
It is left as an exercise to evaluate the last integral (Hint: put t = tan ). The
final form of J is
J = 2( )
242 Advanced Classical Mechanics
2m 2 2
E=
(Jr + J + J )2
where recall that we are considering bound state or periodic motion for which
E < 0. The corresponding frequencies r , and are the same and given
by the partial derivative of the respective J with the corresponding :
4m 2 2
r = = =
(Jr + J + J )3
which is completely symmetric in Jr , J , J .
Employing a Type-II generating function, with the assumption that the Hamil-
tonian H does not depend on t explicitly, gives the following equation for the
characteristic function W :
" 2 2 #
1 W W
+ =E (9.82)
2m x y
1
x2 + y2 . This implies for the momenta
with E =
2m
px = x , py = y (9.84)
2 B. Bagchi, S. Mallik and C. Quesne, Infinite square well and periodic trajectories in
In the above the signs show the reversal in the direction of motion of the
particle each time it hits the barriers at x = a and y = b.
The action variables can now be calculated easily and turn out to be
Jx = 4ax (9.85)
Jy = 4by (9.86)
so that E takes the form
!
1 Jx2 Jy2
E= + (9.87)
32m a2 b2
T = nx Tx = ny Ty (9.90)
where Tx and Ty represent the time in which the particle reaches the starting
point with its initial momenta in the x and y directions, respectively, T is the
244 Advanced Classical Mechanics
time period of the orbit, and nx , ny are integers. Thus, if the particle starts
from the origin at an angle to the x direction, where
py
tan = (9.91)
px
then for closed orbits tan must be rational,3 with the time period given by
(9.90). We can straightforwardly rearrange tan to write down
by bTx bny
tan = = = (9.92)
ax aTy anx
We now consider the following illustrative examples with the particle starting
from the origin in each case.
3 We consider those cases where the linear momentum in the x and y directions, namely,
px , py are expressible in rational form, so that the action variables Jx , Jy as well as the
natural frequencies x , y are also rational.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 245
px py
x= t y= t t16(r1) t t16r15
m m
px py b
x= (t t16r15 ) + a y= (t t16r15 ) + t16r15 t t16r14
m m 4
px py b
x= (t t16r14 ) y= (t t16r14 ) + t16r14 t t16r13
m m 2
px py 3b
x= (t t16r13 ) a y= (t t16r13 ) + t16r13 t t16r12
m m 4
px py
x= (t t16r12 ) y= (t t16r12 ) + b t16r12 t t16r11
m m
px py 3b
x= (t t16r11 ) + a y= (t t16r11 ) + t16r11 t t16r10
m m 4
px py b
x= (t t16r10 ) y= (t t16r10 ) + t16r10 t t16r9
m m 2
px py b
x= (t t16r9 ) a y= (t t16r9 ) + t16r9 t t16r8
m m 4
px py
x= (t t16r8 ) y= (t t16r8 ) t16r8 t t16r7
m m
px py b
x= (t t16r7 ) + a y= (t t16r7 ) t16r7 t t16r6
m m 4
px py b
x= (t t16r6 ) y= (t t16r6 ) t16r6 t t16r5
m m 2
px py 3b
x= (t t16r5 ) a y= (t t16r5 ) t16r5 t t16r4
m m 4
px py
x= (t t16r4 ) y= (t t16r4 ) b t16r4 t t16r3
m m
px py b
x= (t t16r3 ) a y= (t t16r3 ) t16r3 t t16r2
m m 4
px py b
x= (t t16r2 ) y= (t t16r2 ) t16r2 t t16r1
m m 2
px py b
x= (t t16r1 ) a y= (t t16r1 ) t16r1 t t16r
m m 4
(9.93)
ma
where r = 1, 2, and tn = (2n 1) , n = 1, 2,
px
Thus, in this case, the trajectories are periodic when the velocities of the
particle in the x and y directions are such that the time taken by the particle
246 Advanced Classical Mechanics
to cover the distance a in the x direction, is the same as the time it takes to
cover the distance b/4 in the y direction:
ma mb
t1 = =
px 4py
This gives the time period as T = 4Tx = Ty , where Tx = 4t1 and Ty = 16t1 .
2bp
Case 2 : ny = 2, nx = 3 , i.e., pxy = 3a
The particle can be shown to trace out the following trajectories:
px py
x= t y= t t12(r1) t t12r11
m m
px py 2b
x= (t t12r11 ) + a y= (t t12r11 ) + t12r11 t t12r10
m m 3
px a py
x= (t t12r10 ) + y= (t t12r10 ) + b t12r10 t t12r9
m 2 m
px py
x= (t t12r9 ) a y= (t t12r9 ) t12r9 t t12r8
m m
px a py
x= (t t12r8 ) + y= (t t12r8 ) b t12r8 t t12r7
m 2 m
px py 2b
x= (t t12r7 ) + a y= (t t12r7 ) t12r7 t t12r6
m m 3
px py
x= (t t12r6 ) y= (t t12r6 ) t12r6 t t12r5
m m
px py 2b
x= (t t12r5 ) a y= (t t12r5 ) + t12r5 t t12r4
m m 3
px a py
x= (t t12r4 ) y= (t t12r4 ) b t12r4 t t12r3
m 2 m
px py
x= (t t12r3 ) + a y= (t t12r3 ) t12r3 t t12r2
m m
px a py
x= (t t12r2 ) y= (t t12r2 ) b t12r2 t t12r1
m 2 m
px py 2b
x= (t t12r1 ) a y= (t t12r1 ) t12r1 t t12r
m m 3
(9.94)
ma
where r = 1, 2, and tn = (2n 1) , n = 1, 2,
px
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 247
It is easy to observe that in this case t2 = 3t1 /2, t3 = 3t1 , t4 = 9t1 /2, t5 = 5t1 ,
ma 2mb
etc. Thus, Tx = t5 t1 = 4t1 and Ty = t8 t2 = 6t1 , where t1 = = ,
px 3py
giving T = 12t1 = 3Tx = 2Ty .
vy t (4m 1) b
= (9.95)
vx t (4n 1) a
and the condition for the billiard ball to get pocketed reduces to
py (4m 1) b
= (9.96)
px (4n 1) a
If the numerator has positive (negative) sign in (9.96), then the ball hits one
of the two corners where y is positive (negative). Similarly, if the denominator
has positive (negative) sign in (9.96), then the ball hits one of the two corners
where x is positive (negative). From equations (9.91), (9.92) and (9.96), it is
obvious that this occurs for odd integral values of both nx and ny . Based on
this we summarize in Table 9.1 the corner in which the ball will get pocketed.
Note that we assign the following numbers to the respective corners : (a, b) as
corner 1, (a, b) as corner 2, (a, b) as corner 3, and (a, b) as corner 4. It
is observed that the predicted corners are in fact the actual ones.
248 Advanced Classical Mechanics
1/3 (, +) 2
1/5 (+, +) 1
1/7 (, +) 2
1/9 (+, +) 1
3/7 (, ) 3
5/7 (, +) 2
3/5 (+, ) 4
5/9 (+, +) 1
7/9 (+, ) 4
9.9 Summary
Since the choices of generalized coordinates in most cases are rather ar-
bitrary it is sometimes necessary to look for transformations that ease the
mathematical complications confronting a given physical problem. Canonical
transformations form one class of transformations that offer a simplified way
of looking at the physical properties of a mechanical system through equations
that can be represented in simple terms. Looking for invariance of Hamiltons
equations under a set of suitable transformations does indeed give the right
clue in this direction. For one thing we can equivalently think of those class
of transformations that preserve the invariance of Poisson brackets defined
in terms of new variables. For another, the symplectic character of canonical
transformations holds equivalently. Permuting the set of generalized coordi-
nates and the set of generalized or conjugate momenta one can define four dif-
ferent types of functions that generate these transformations. Such functions
are called generating functions. The extreme possibility of the transformed
variables becoming explicitly absent in the transformed Hamiltonian gives us
the HamiltonJacobi equation. This has many rich consequences the most
noteworthy being the formulation of action-angle variables. This chapter dis-
cussed through examples the underpinnings of canonical transformations and
the new directions they open up.
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 249
Exercises
1. Show that the following transformations of coordinates are canonical:
(i) Q = q cos 2p, P = q sin 2p
q 1 2
(ii) Q = tan1 ( ), P = (q + p2 )
p 2
sin p
(iii) Q = log( ), P = qcotp
q
(iv) Q = pq 2 , P = q 1
(v) Q = log(1 + q cos p), P = 2(1 + q cos p) q sin p
2. What is the canonical transformation generated by G1 = q 2 cotQ,
where is a constant?
3. Deduce a canonical transformation such that the Hamiltonian H of the
1
form H = p2 + (4q + 1)p + 4q 2 2q is coverted to K(Q, P ) = 2m P 2 mgQ
where m and g are constant quantities. Interpret K(q, P ).
4. Show that the set of transformations
r
2q p
Q= cos p, P = 2qk sin p
k
is canonical and the generating function G1 (q, Q) is
s
1 p 1 k
G1 (q, Q) = Q 2qk k 2 Q2 q cos (Q )
2 2q
5. Prove that the generating function facilitating transformation from
Cartesian to spherical coordinates through the usual relations
p2x 1 2 2 1
Qx = qx2 + , Qy = c [(qx + qy2 ) + 2 (p2x + p2y )]
c2 2 c
250 Advanced Classical Mechanics
1 2 q 1 2 q
2x = [x +y2 + (x2 y2 )2 + 4g 2 ], 2y = [x +y2 (x2 y2 )2 + 4g 2 ]
2 2
and tan(2) = 22g 2.
x y
8. The motion of a particle of mass m moving in a plane under a central
force is controlled by the Hamiltonian
1 2
H= (r + r2 2 ) + V (r)
2m
Determine Hamiltons characteristic function and solve the problem com-
pletely.
9. If a time-independent generating function G2 (q, P ) is given by
G2 (q, P ) = qP + aq 3 P + bqP 3 where is a small quantity and a,b are
constants, obtain q and p in the forms
Q = A cos(t + ), P = A sin(t + )
3A2
where A is a constant and = + 2 .
HamiltonJacobi equation and action-angle variables 251
10. For a power law potential V (q) = q 2n , where > 0 and n is a positive
p2
integer, appearing in the Hamiltonian H = 2m +V (q), find the action variable
I in the form
1 nI n+1
2n 1 n+1
n
E = n+1 ( ) ( )
Jn 2m
where E is the energy and Jn is given by the integral
Z 1
1 12n
Jn = (1 t) 2 t 2n dt
0
References
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253
254 References
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257
258 Index
time-dependent HamiltonJacobi
equation, 230
time-independent HamiltonJacobi
equation, 233
time-reversal, 208
torque, 23
total derivative term, 65
trajectory, 119
transcritical bifurcation, 153
Type I canonical transformation, 223
Type I generating function, 222
Type II canonical transformation,
224
Type II generating function, 222