1.I.9C

Classical Dynamics
Part II, 2006

Hamilton's equations for a system with nn degrees of freedom can be written in vector form as

x˙=JHx\dot{\mathbf{x}}=J \frac{\partial H}{\partial \mathbf{x}}

where x=(q1,,qn,p1,,pn)T\mathbf{x}=\left(q_{1}, \ldots, q_{n}, p_{1}, \ldots, p_{n}\right)^{T} is a 2n2 n-vector and the 2n×2n2 n \times 2 n matrix JJ takes the form

J=(0110)J=\left(\begin{array}{cc} 0 & 1 \\ -1 & 0 \end{array}\right)

where 1 is the n×nn \times n identity matrix. Derive the condition for a transformation of the form xiyi(x)x_{i} \rightarrow y_{i}(\mathbf{x}) to be canonical. For a system with a single degree of freedom, show that the following transformation is canonical for all nonzero values of α\alpha :

Q=tan1(αqp),P=12(αq2+p2α)Q=\tan ^{-1}\left(\frac{\alpha q}{p}\right), \quad P=\frac{1}{2}\left(\alpha q^{2}+\frac{p^{2}}{\alpha}\right)