Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-classical-mechanics-course-of-part-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/2/b/solution

At , the explicitly time-dependent coefficient becomes one. This restores time-translation symmetry, and the total energy becomes conserved. No further analogous restoration occurs merely from setting equal to them: the three arbitrary interaction functions still distinguish their arguments and particle labels.
If the question counts the extra ordinary unweighted rotations of the coordinate labels, the conventional generator count is as follows. For , rotations of preserve both the kinetic and oscillator terms, so one ordinarily displayed rotation charge joins the restored energy: two displayed generators beyond the elementary list. For three equal masses, the full ordinary rotation group of has three generators; together with energy this gives four, or two more than in the preceding equal-pair case.
There is a necessary qualification to interpreting those numbers as genuinely new independent conservation laws. The weighted charges in solution deform continuously to those same ordinary rotation charges at equality. For example is conserved for every positive and becomes when the masses agree. Thus
The restriction must be stated if using the first count. Equal mass does not create three previously absent independent oscillator integrals. If , energy conservation was already present; special choices of the interaction functions can add further symmetries and are excluded by the generic assumption.

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