Paper 2, Section II, D
Part IB, 2017
A proto-planet of mass in a uniform galactic dust cloud has kinetic and potential energies
where is constant. State Hamilton's principle and use it to determine the equations of motion for the proto-planet.
Write down two conserved quantities of the motion and state why their existence illustrates Noether's theorem.
Determine the Hamiltonian of this system, where and are the conjugate momenta corresponding to .
Write down Hamilton's equations for this system and use them to show that
and is a constant. With the aid of a diagram, explain why there is a stable circular orbit.