AN INTRODUCTION to LAGRANGIAN MECHANICS Alain
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AN INTRODUCTION TO LAGRANGIAN MECHANICS Alain J. Brizard Department of Chemistry and Physics Saint Michael’s College, Colchester, VT 05439 July 7, 2007 i Preface The original purpose of the present lecture notes on Classical Mechanics was to sup- plement the standard undergraduate textbooks (such as Marion and Thorton’s Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems) normally used for an intermediate course in Classi- cal Mechanics by inserting a more general and rigorous introduction to Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods suitable for undergraduate physics students at sophomore and ju- nior levels. The outcome of this effort is that the lecture notes are now meant to provide a self-consistent introduction to Classical Mechanics without the need of any additional material. It is expected that students taking this course will have had a one-year calculus-based introductory physics course followed by a one-semester course in Modern Physics. Ideally, students should have completed their three-semester calculus sequence by the time they enroll in this course and, perhaps, have taken a course in ordinary differential equations. On the other hand, this course should be taken before a rigorous course in Quantum Mechanics in order to provide students with a sound historical perspective involving the connection between Classical Physics and Quantum Physics. Hence, the second semester of the sophomore year or the fall semester of the junior year provide a perfect niche for this course. The structure of the lecture notes presented here is based on achieving several goals. As a first goal, I originally wanted to model these notes after the wonderful monograph of Landau and Lifschitz on Mechanics, which is often thought to be too concise for most undergraduate students. One of the many positive characteristics of Landau and Lifschitz’s Mechanics is that Lagrangian mechanics is introduced in its first chapter and not in later chapters as is usually done in more standard textbooks used at the sophomore/junior undergraduate level. Consequently, Lagrangian mechanics becomes the centerpiece of the course and provides a continous thread throughout the text. As a second goal, the lecture notes introduce several numerical investigations of dynam- ical equations appearing throughout the text. These numerical investigations present an interactive pedagogical approach, which should enable students to begin their own numer- ical investigations. As a third goal, an attempt was made to introduce relevant historical facts (whenever appropriate) about the pioneers of Classical Mechanics. Much of the his- torical information included in the Notes is taken from Ren´e Dugas (History of Mechanics, 1955), Wolfgang Yourgrau and Stanley Mandelstam (Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory, 1968), or Cornelius Lanczos (The Variational Principles of Me- chanics, 1970). In fact, from a pedagogical point of view, this historical perspective helps educating undergraduate students in establishing the deep connections between Classical and Quantum Mechanics, which are often ignored or even inverted (as can be observed when undergraduate students are surprised to hear that Hamiltonians have an indepen- dent classical existence). As a fourth and final goal, I wanted to keep the scope of these ii notes limited to a one-semester course in contrast to standard textbooks, which often in- clude an extensive review of Newtonian Mechanics as well as additional material such as Hamiltonian chaos. The standard topics covered in these notes are listed in order as follows: Introduction to the Calculus of Variations (Chapter 1), Lagrangian Mechanics (Chapter 2), Hamiltonian Mechanics (Chapter 3), Motion in a Central Field (Chapter 4), Collisions and Scattering Theory (Chapter 5), Motion in a Non-Inertial Frame (Chapter 6), Rigid Body Motion (Chapter 7), Normal-Mode Analysis (Chapter 8), and Continuous Lagrangian Systems (Chapter 9). Each chapter contains a problem set with variable level of difficulty; sections identified with an asterisk may be omitted for a one-semester course. Lastly, in order to ensure a self-contained presentation, a summary of mathematical methods associated with linear algebra, and trigonometic and elliptic functions is presented in Appendix A. Appendix B presents a brief summary of the derivation of the Schr¨odinger equation based on the Lagrangian formalism developed by R. P. Feynman. Several innovative topics not normally discussed in standard undergraduate textbooks are included throughout the notes. In Chapter 1, a complete discussion of Fermat’s Princi- ple of Least Time is presented, from which a generalization of Snell’s Law for light refrac- tion through a nonuniform medium is derived and the equations of geometric optics are obtained. We note that Fermat’s Principle proves to be an ideal introduction to variational methods in the undergraduate physics curriculum since students are already familiar with Snell’s Law of light refraction. In Chapter 2, we establish the connection between Fermat’s Principle and Maupertuis- Jacobi’s Principle of Least Action. In particular, Jacobi’s Principle introduces a geometric representation of single-particle dynamics that establishes a clear pre-relativistic connection between Geometry and Physics. Next, the nature of mechanical forces is discussed within the context of d’Alembert’s Principle, which is based on a dynamical generalization of the Principle of Virtual Work. Lastly, the fundamental link between the energy-momentum conservation laws and the symmetries of the Lagrangian function is first discussed through Noether’s Theorem and then Routh’s procedure to eliminate ignorable coordinates is ap- plied to a Lagrangian with symmetries. In Chapter 3, the problem of charged-particle motion in an electromagnetic field is investigated by the Lagrangian method in the three-dimensional configuration space and the Hamiltonian method in the six-dimensional phase space. This important physical example presents a clear link between the two methods. Contents 1 Introduction to the Calculus of Variations 1 1.1 Foundations of the Calculus of Variations . ....... 1 1.1.1 ASimpleMinimizationProblem. 1 1.1.2 MethodsoftheCalculusofVariations. ... 2 1.1.3 Path of Shortest Distance and Geodesic Equation . ..... 7 1.2 ClassicalVariationalProblems . ..... 10 1.2.1 IsoperimetricProblem .. .. .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. ... 10 1.2.2 BrachistochroneProblem. 12 1.3 Fermat’sPrincipleofLeastTime . 13 1.3.1 Light Propagation in a Nonuniform Medium . 15 1.3.2 Snell’sLaw ............................... 17 1.3.3 ApplicationofFermat’sPrinciple . 18 1.4 Geometric Formulation of Ray Optics∗ .................... 19 1.4.1 Frenet-Serret Curvature of Light Path . 19 1.4.2 Light Propagation in Spherical Geometry . 21 1.4.3 Geodesic Representation of Light Propagation . ...... 23 1.4.4 EikonalRepresentation. 25 1.5 Problems..................................... 28 2 Lagrangian Mechanics 31 2.1 Maupertuis-Jacobi’s Principle of Least Action . ......... 31 2.1.1 Maupertuis’principle. 31 iii iv CONTENTS 2.1.2 Jacobi’sprinciple ............................ 33 2.2 D’Alembert’sPrinciple . 34 2.2.1 PrincipleofVirtualWork . 35 2.2.2 Lagrange’s Equations from D’Alembert’s Principle . ........ 36 2.3 Hamilton’s Principle and Euler-Lagrange Equations . .......... 38 2.3.1 ConstraintForces............................ 38 2.3.2 Generalized Coordinates in Configuration Space . ...... 39 2.3.3 ConstrainedMotiononaSurface . 41 2.3.4 Euler-LagrangeEquations . 42 2.3.5 Lagrangian Mechanics in Curvilinear Coordinates∗ .......... 44 2.4 Lagrangian Mechanics in Configuration Space . ...... 45 2.4.1 ExampleI:Pendulum. .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. ... .. .. 45 2.4.2 ExampleII:BeadonaRotatingHoop . 46 2.4.3 ExampleIII:RotatingPendulum . 49 2.4.4 Example IV: Compound Atwood Machine . 51 2.4.5 Example V: Pendulum with Oscillating Fulcrum . 53 2.5 SymmetriesandConservationLaws . 55 2.5.1 EnergyConservationLaw . 56 2.5.2 MomentumConservationLaws . 56 2.5.3 Invariance Properties of a Lagrangian . 57 2.5.4 Lagrangian MechanicswithSymmetries . 58 2.5.5 Routh’s Procedure for Eliminating Ignorable Coordinates...... 60 2.6 Lagrangian Mechanics in the Center-of-Mass Frame . ........ 61 2.7 Problems..................................... 64 3 Hamiltonian Mechanics 67 3.1 CanonicalHamilton’sEquations . 67 3.2 LegendreTransformation* . 68 3.3 Hamiltonian Optics and Wave-Particle Duality* . ........ 70 CONTENTS v 3.4 Particle Motion in an Electromagnetic Field*. ........ 71 3.4.1 Euler-LagrangeEquations . 71 3.4.2 EnergyConservationLaw . 73 3.4.3 GaugeInvariance ............................ 73 3.4.4 CanonicalHamilton’sEquations . 74 3.5 One-degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian Dynamics . ........ 74 3.5.1 SimpleHarmonicOscillator . 77 3.5.2 Pendulum ................................ 77 3.5.3 Constrained Motion on the Surface of a Cone . 81 3.6 Charged Spherical Pendulum in a Magnetic Field∗ .............. 82 3.6.1 LagrangianandRouthian . 82 3.6.2 Routh-Euler-Lagrange equations . 84 3.6.3 Hamiltonian............................... 84 3.7 Problems..................................... 89 4 Motion in a Central-Force Field 93 4.1 MotioninaCentral-ForceField . 93 4.1.1 LagrangianFormalism . 93 4.1.2 HamiltonianFormalism. 95 4.1.3 TurningPoints ............................. 96 4.2 Homogeneous Central Potentials∗ ....................... 97 4.2.1 TheVirialTheorem. ... .. .. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. ... 97 4.2.2 General Properties of Homogeneous Potentials . ...... 98 4.3 KeplerProblem................................